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Howdie Folks,

First all of all a massive thanks to Debs, JAT and Wills, whom in my absence have written some really good articles, and maybe being away is a good thing for the Arsenal, as we’ve won every game… We take on Hull tomorrow in a very important game – well, every game is important from now until the end of the season, in fact, they’re all cup finals, aren’t they – and that is how we played against Porto – a performance which was absolutely top draw.

It’s very close at the top with Man United on 63 points and both us and Chelsea (wagih) on 61 points… Hull for us, of course, will be a difficult test, they are a “bitey” side and have shown what they are capable of – against the big boys – with some impressive performances both this and last season, of course, a shock to all last season when they beat us at the Emirates. This season, there was quite a lot of animosity, with a flare up which resulted in both clubs being fined by the FA.

Tomorrow’s game action sees Chelsea and West Ham meet at Stamford Bridge for a 3pm kick off and then after that sees us travel to he KC Stadium. Chelsea have had a week’s rest or so, but I wouldn’t put it past West Ham to have a real go at them as they’re in need of points just as much as anyone else. Chelsea’s recent losses to Everton and Man City should sure inspire West Ham. With Man United playing on Sunday, we could leapfrog them and keep the pressure up.

Arsene has confirmed that Cesc is out of the fixture and we’ll also be without Alex Song as he completed the second of his two match suspension…

“His chances of playing are 0.5 per cent – that means unless a miracle happens, he will not play. At the moment, Cesc is out of Saturday’s game. We have a little doubt about [Tomas] Rosicky (groin), but we will check that tomorrow morning. Nobody else is back, but we will lose [Alex] Song, because he is suspended.”

With Campbell having played in midweek, I doubt he’ll play again so soon, as recent changes from Arsene have suggested that he doesn’t want Sol to play two games in quite quick sucession, rather to put him in every other game if required. Silvestre would be his natural replacement, and as a result, the team news could mean we’ll see this team deployed tomorrow:

Almunia

Sagna – Vermalen – Silvestre – Clichy

Denilson – Diaby

Walcott – Nasri – Arshavin

Bendtner

With our next game after this at the Emirates a full week away, there won’t be any need to rest Sagna or Walcott which sees Eboue out of the team, which may be quite disappointing for the Ivorian, as he has shown some excellent form recently. I’d expect Nasri to continue ahead of Denilson and Diaby in the central midfield position and it’s a very exciting team. There is a question of which Niklas Bendtner we will see tomorrow, we all know he can do it, more games under his belt should see his consistency get better.

Arsene took time to praise Eboue’s recent form and said this:

“I believe it is like Theo [Walcott]. He [Eboue] was criticised last year and came back with the right attitude. Put the right performances in and people will love you. We are not loved for what you say when you are a football player but for what you produce on the football pitch. Sometimes we tend to forget that. He did that right. Theo did too. He [Eboue] is developing into a complete player – he can play full-back, right midfield, left midfield. He is a great football player. Emmanuel Eboue starts now to get the credit he deserves. He has a fantastic attitude and loves the game. He is an extrovert who has some talents not only on the football pitch but he can be funny. He uses that in a very positive way for a good mood in the squad. His best position is right back or right midfield. When we want to be a bit more solid we use Sagna and him on the right flank.  But he is a very creative player. Full-back is a very important position in modern football, if you start well there – the quality of your pass and of getting out of pressure most of the time in the modern game comes through the wings and starts with the full-backs.

It’s funny, because every time Arsene praises a player before a game, he doesn’t play them in the next one, as we saw when Theo was on the bench against Porto. But personally, I have to say, my opinion of Emmanuel Eboue has completed changed and he’s a much better player than we all thought a year ago. In fact, Arsene has proved me wrong on several occasions with the likes of Flamini, Diaby, Eboue and Bendtner – all four players I was happy to see the back of, but they’ve all proved me wrong to become pretty damn good players. I hope Denilson can shake off his bad form and also prove me wrong.

Suddenly, having had the likes of so many good players back in the squad, having all had a run of games to regain match fitness, we see ourselves with a larger squad and more options. The run in is going to be exciting and there is no reason why we’re not going to be involved…

Come on you Gunners, one game at a time… Til tomorrow…

Before the game, lots of stats were being bandied around:

-We’ve failed to score in four of the last seven Champions League matches in which Fabregas has not played;

-Porto have played 14 matches in England, losing 12 and drawing 2;

-Porto have progressed in the last 25 two-legged ties in Europe in which they have won the first leg at home

-Since 04/05, Arsenal have played 4 home Champions League games without Cesc Fabregas, winning them all;

-We haven’t overturned a  first leg deficit in Europe since beating Hajduk Split in 1978- all of 32 years ago!

Some of those stats were obviously in our favour, but it was all a matter of which team would create history. Would Porto finally overcome their England blues, or would we break our 32-year duck?

The starting XI for the game saw a few changes from the Burnley starting XI with Sol and Sagna replacing Silvestre and Eboue; Diaby, Song and Arshavin replacing Fabregas, Denilson and Theo. Apart from Cesc- being an enforced change due to injury- the rest of them dropped to the bench. Alumia was made Captain in Cesc’s absence.

With Porto leading 2-1 from the first leg and with us having the away goal, a 1-0 would have done nicely for us. But that would have been an unbearably tense 90 minutes as the worry was that we wouldn’t keep a clean sheet, and a Porto goal would knock us out. A 2-1 scoreline would have forced extra-time and possibly penalties. But for me, as long as we progressed, it didn’t matter how we did it!

We started brightly and in my opinion, this was one of the best 15 minutes we’ve played all season- at the Emirates at least- and we scored a goal too! Our first in the first 15 minutes at the Emirates, in all competitions.

The first chance fell to Nasri, after excellent work down the right from Rosicky but his shot was blocked by a Porto defender. An unmarked Arshavin after a deep cross by Sagna then had a header at the near post, which was brilliantly tipped round by Helton in the Porto goal.

Then came the goal inside 10 minutes, which was scored by none other than Nicklas Bendtner. He’s had some harsh criticism over the past few days after his amazing misses against Burnley, but he did exactly what Theo did on Saturday and turned in a dazzling performance. The goal came about after Almunia’s goal kick found Arshavin, who headed it down to Nasri who played a through-ball for Arshavin to get on the end of. Helton was out quickly but the ball broke loose, with Bendtner getting there just before the defender to prod it into an unguarded net. Replays showed. that Arshavin was offside when he headed Almunia’s goal-kick, but the linesman didn’t give it and we were ahead. It was a deserved lead, though.

We looked to press on, Diaby hiting a difficult volley just over the bar. But Porto came back strongly, forcing a number of corners after our passing suddenly went awry. But we held firm and the pressure was short-lived and we duly got our second goal. Arshavin was causing havoc down the left and it was no surprise that our second goal came courtesy of yet more brilliant work from him.

Instead of playing the ball out for a throwing, Fucile I think it was, kept it in and promptly lost it to Arshavin on the left, who danced his way into the box towards the byline before laying the perfect centre to Nicklas Bendtner for an easy tap-in. He missed a similar chance on Saturday from a similar ball on from the right, but there was no way he was going to miss. Porto tried to claim offside, as Bendtner was ahead of all the defenders, but Arshavin had cleverly run ahead of Bendtner before releasing the ball so Nick couldn’t have been offside. He’s showing us that he performs better on the big stage and is in his element when the pressure’s on. Arshavin said after the game on Saturday that maybe Bendtner was saving his goals for this game. He certainly was and all of a sudden, he was on a hat-trick!

A goal from Porto would have brought them right back into it, so we still had to ensure we didn’t concede, and if possible score another goal just to kill the tie off. We won a free-kick just in the edge of the box, on the right, but Arshavin’s ball which was angling into the far corner, was easily saved by Helton. Arshavin had the chance to make it 3-0 with 33 minutes on the clock after lovely play between Nasri and Diaby on the right, but he shinned it over the bar, after Nasri’s cross found him on the left in acres of space. He looked surprised to have missed it!

Porto tried piling the pressure yet again, but they didn’t do enough to trouble Almunia and the chances in the half kept falling to us. Bendtner tried to bend a shot into the far corner, but Helton turned it round the post. From the resulting corner, Diaby header was tipped onto the bottom of the post by Helton! He was certainly keeping his side in the tie, just about. Nasri also had a shot from outside the box, which Helton yet again pushed round for a corner.

So it ended 2-0 at half-time and we were good value for that lead. It seemed like it was only a matter of how many more goals we’d get in the second half, as Porto didn’t look like scoring.

But Porto started the second-half brightly and we looked shaky at the back. Falcao managed to get on the end of a cross from the byline, but his shot was straight at Almunia, who saved at the second attempt. We also had a chance to score too, but Arshavin’s shot was spilt and then saved by Helton. We then made a substitution after about 56 minutes, Eboue coming on for Rosicky, who’d had a decent game.

There was the slack defending poeple were worried about but we held on and crucially, didn’t concede. We almost did actually, after Rodriguez’s header was cleared off the line by Nasri, straight into the arms of Almunia! And after that brilliant bit of defending, Nasri went down the other end shortly after and scored one of the best goals you’ll see in the Champions League this season! Diaby passed to Nasri on the right, and with no real passing option, decided to walk right through 3 Porto defenders in the box, before firing in a hot shot from a really tight angle in off the far post! Absolutely fabulous goal which Nasri totally deserved! Here’s a youtube video of it if you haven’t seen it yet. That goal in effect sealed the tie. What a way to do it!

Nasri Goal

And with Porto still reeling from that blow we scored another almost immediately! From a dreadful corner, Arshavin nicked the ball and ran all the way to the other end with Eboue sprinting alongside him for support. Arshavin played the ball to Eboue, who rounded the ‘keeper, kept his composure and stroked the ball into the empty net for our 4th goal. Brilliant counter-attacking and Porto were dead and buried!

The brilliant Samir Nasri was later replaced by Denilson, with 20 minutes to go. We still kept creating chances and Sagna had the chance to score his first goal of the season after a lovely pull-back from Arshavin, but he had too much time to think about it and shot well over the bar.

Theo also came on for Arshavin, with 15 minutes to go. He didn’t have lots of time to make that much of an impact, but he did well for the time he was on the pitch for. We continued to cruise really, and Bendtner had the chance for his hat-trick, but he’s header went a bit wide. But he got another chance shortly after though, after the referee gave a penalty for a foul on Eboue inside the box in stoppage time- right decision. And Bendtner duly converted it for his first hat-trick at a senior level, with the last kick of the game. It was the perfect way to bring the game to an end and seal a 6-2 aggregate thrashing of Porto.

We were without Cesc but we had more than enough to deal with Porto and Cesc was hardly missed. Great call by Arsene not to risk him tonight. The players showed it wasn’t a risk he needed to take. We’ll need hin for bigger games. Diaby was excellent. Song was brilliant in the centre of the pack. He looked fired up, after missing the last domestic game through suspension. Sol was a bit shaky in the first half, but he used his experience to handle Porto very well. Vermaelen also made a number of fantastic blocks, although he picked up a yellow. Clichy and Sagna were effective in defence, and Clichy is beginning to look like he’s back to his best, after a long lay-off. Arshavin was literally on fire and Bendtner had another excellent game. His presence in the side has brought another dimension to our game and everything looks like it’s beginning to click. Almunia was barely troubled, but the few times he had to make a save he did, and I’m sure the clean-sheet would have done well for his confidence.

In all honesty, everyone single player did very very well. Can’t think of anyone who had a dodgy game and it’s really hard to pick a Man of the Match! Anyone of Bendtner, Nasri, Arshavin, Song or Diaby would be deserving.
Here’s Wenger’s comments on the game:

“They had one or two chances in the beginning of the second half and we were coming back from the dressing room not focused enough, but in the game we scored some great goals. We did what we like to do; we won with style and we were always going forward in a convincing way.”

And on Bendtner:

“I told you how football can change for a player in three days. It goes quickly up and quickly down. And it shows you as well that he has not lost the confidence that he came back tonight with good focus and with the same belief. It is one of his strengths. His confidence level remains relatively stable.”

And Nasri:

“I believe Samir Nasri is developing very well. What he showed in the game tonight, he has shown in training, and we expected that to come out in games. He is a player with talent and he has shown that again tonight, he showed that on Saturday, and he has started to be efficient now. I believe the first pass against Burnley was great. Tonight on the first goal, he made a great pass to Arshavin and scored a great goal. The great players for me are the players who give assists and score goals. And that is what you want from him.”

What can I say, except that this is WHY I love the Arsenal?!

Well the big day is here, Arsenal v Porto for a place in the Champions League quarter finals.

It’s a massive game for Arsenal – win and we’ll be in the draw for the last 8,  with a good chance of going further in the competition. Lose, and we’ll only have to the Premiership to go for and people will be saying we’re not the team we think we are.

Team news is that from the weekends squad it’s two in one out, with Campbell available again after injury and Song available after missing the Burnley game due to suspension. Vela may also be free to play after being left out of the weekend game because of jet lag. Wenger confirmed yesterday that Cesc would not be ready to play, which is of course a huge miss. We do have players who can cover though, namely Samir Nasri and Abou Diaby.

I’d expect to see Bendtner lead the line for us tonight, despite the outrageous amount of chances he spurned on Saturday, with Walcott and Rosicky either side. I’ve gone with Rosicky over Arshavin simply because of the fact that Arshavin’s been out for the past few games with injury and although he scored a cracker against Burnley, we need every player to be at 100% tonight.

With this news, here’s my prediction for tonight’s line up:

Almunia

Sagna – Campbell – Vermaelen – Clichy

Diaby – Song – Nasri

Walcott – Bendtner – Rosicky

That XI should be good enough to get past Porto at home. The back four looks solid, and with Song in front of them, they should be largely untroubled. Nasri is a great replacement for Cesc in midfield and as we saw on Saturday, has the ability to provide that little bit of spark. Up front, both Walcott and Rosicky have pace and trickery which should cause the Porto full backs a few problems, particularly if they’re bombing forward like in the first leg.  With players like Eduardo and Arshavin on the bench, we’ve definitely got the talent to win tonight, I think the players just need to believe they can do it.

The key tonight is not to concede an early goal. The atmosphere should be buzzing tonight, and hopefully that will get the lads going. If you look back to the Semi-Final against United last year, the atmosphere before kick off was electric and we really started on the foot but as soon as we conceded, the belief of both the players and the fans just dropped. That can’t happen tonight, if we get an early goal, we need to push on for a second. Everyone knows that Arsenal are more than capable of scoring at home, and I’ve no doubt that we will tonight.

If anyone’s going tonight, get there early and show your support. Get behind the lads and see us into the quarter finals.

Come on Arsenal!

There will be a proper pre-match preview tomorrow so I’ll keep it brief today. The big news of the day is that Cesc Fabregas misses the Champions League 2nd leg tie with Porto as a result of a hamstring injury which appears to be more serious than first hoped. It is a blow, no doubt, because you always want your biggest players available for games like these. Whilst we have Song available again (his ban applying to domestic matches only) I have to admit that I would have preferred any other player in the squad to be unavailable over Cesc.

However, the manager has already ruled out any opportunity for excuses:

“Ideally we wanted him to be there, but we want to qualify and the absence of Cesc is no excuse at all.

We have enough players and a strong enough squad to get round that and have enough chances to qualify.”

You have to agree with him. At the end of the day it is down to us to cope with these sorts of injuries. We have managed to keep our title hopes alive without the input of Robin van Persie and it is imperative that we don’t allow the loss of Cesc to interfere with our belief and desire in the Champions League.

There has never been a better time for players like Bendtner and Walcott to step up and be counted for. We are going to need big performences from them no doubt, and without Cesc you look towards other players such as Arshavin, Nasri and Diaby to fill the void left by the captain. Our defenders will of course be vital too. The forgettable performance from the first leg must not be replicated. We’ll need the whole team to be fully committed to the cause because it is going to be a difficult evening tomorrow. I know we are capable of winning but there is something about this tie that smells like PSV a few years ago.

When we drew Porto everyone was saying that it was the easiest tie out of all the English sides. On paper I would agree but I always felt that the away leg would be crucial and the result was bad at the end of the day. Will it be a case of the away goal saving us, or our calamity of a defensive performance proving ultimately to be the decisive factor?

As I have already said this tie gives me an uneasy feeling. We have beaten them comfortably everytime we’ve played them at home. The media enjoy reminding us of that as well as that they have never won on English soil. The typical outcome is that Porto win the tie and shove all that straight back at the media. I desperately hope this doesn’t happen but we’ll need to be on our game big time to make sure. The wasted chances on Saturday will not be a luxury afforded to us tomorrow.

On this point Arsene has backed Bendtner to bounce back from his inexplicable performance on Saturday:

“He missed some big chances on Saturday but that is needed for any young striker at some stage. He looks at why he missed the chances and gets it right in the next game. That is important for a young striker.

I think he is really improving at the moment. That was just an isolated game. In every competition you always have something to prove and show how good you are.

He has a good mental strength and, even if he was disappointed with the chances he missed, it will not diminish his desire and confidence to going to the next game.”

The one certain factor that must be borne in mind is we need to score tomorrow. Ideally as many goals as possible but if we fail to score we are out. I know it is stating the obvious but it goes back to my original point that we have to take our chances. If we do, we’ll win comfortably but if we don’t it is going to be another one of those nervy nights at the Emirates.

After all the controversy of last week, it was really great to have a ‘nice and easy’ game at the Emirates. Burnley have the worst away record in Premier League history and I doubt many people would have been holding out for anything other than an Arsenal win.

The only question being asked really, was how many goals we would win by. If we won by 4 clear goals, we’d go top of the league on goal difference, subject to Man Utd’s result against Wolves later on. In any event, Utd squeaked past Wolves 1-0 so we would’nt have been top at the end of the weekend.

Four changes were made to the team that beat Stoke. With Gallas still out injured and Sol picking up a knock against Stoke, most fans’ least favourite defender Silvestre had to be paired in defence with Vermaelen. Sagna was rested (presumably), meaning Eboue had to drop into right-back from midfield. With Song (suspension) and Ramsey (injury) missing, our front six were Nasri, Denilson, Rosicky, Cesc and Walcott.

Almunia

Eboue – Vermaelen –  Silvestre – Clichy

Denilson – Nasri

Walcott – Cesc – Rosicky

Bendtner

As this was the first home game since Ramsey’s injury, there were loads of banners wishing Ramsey well and the players all wore T-shirts saying ‘GET WELL SOON AARON’, with his squad number on the back. This was really nice to see, and I’m sure if Aaron was watching, he would have appreciated the effort and support from everyone.

We started the game on the front foot as you would expect, cutting Burnley apart with ease. Bendtner tried to slip Cesc in just inside 2 minutes, but the ball wouldn’t quite fall for him and it was cleared by a Burnley defender. Fabregas later turned provider for Bendtner but he dallied a bit on the ball, but the defender recovered, just as Bendtner was about to pull the trigger. More chances were to follow, but we just couldn’t put any away, with Bendtner being the guiltiest party.

The goal finally came, courtesy of Captain Fabtastic. Nasri played a fabulous ball over the defenders after spotting Cesc’s run into the box and all he had to do was sidefoot the ball from close-range through Jenson’s legs. It was a beautiful goal, giving us the lead we very much deserved after 34 minutes. Fabregas got substituted shortly after that, as he had felt his hamstring, with Diaby replacing him. Arsene said after the game that he wasn’t sure yet of the severity of the injury. Hopefully it will turn out not to be serious, but he’s a doubt for the Porto game.

It still looked like we’d go on and score more despite losing Cesc, but we didn’t. Theo was having a lovely time on the wings, creating chance after chance. One such chance fell to Bendtner after Theo delivered the perfect of crosses onto his head, but he headed it wide! Unfortunately for him, that’s pretty much how the rest of the afternoon went for him. I think he might have left home in a hurry and forgot his shooting boots, or something.

It ended 1-0 at halftime, but it really should have been more.

We started the second half a bit sloppily though, letting Burnley back into the game about 5 minutes after the restart! David Nugent grabbed the equaliser after some loose play at the back. Eboue initially did well to clear the danger inside the penalty area, hooking the ball back towards the half-way line. But the ball was headed straight back and bounced right in-between our centre halfs, leaving an onside Nugent with the chance to lob it over Almunia. He took it and out of nowhere really, we were back level. Sloppy stuff.

But it didn’t matter though, as were back level 10 minutes later, through the excellent Theo Walcott. And he did most of the work himself. The ball was played to him on the right side by Bendtner. He cut inside, and from just inside the box caressed the ball past Jenson with his left foot. I don’t really understand what his celebration was about but he ran to the touchline towards a member of the coaching staff, tapping his wrist. It doesn’t matter what that was about, anyways. It was a great goal by Theo which I thought he thoroughly deserved. He’d received some stick during the week which I felt were totally harsh on him and I thought he responded the best way possible. Theo’s back, and I hope he maintains this form until the end of the season.

Rosicky got substituted for Arshavin who’s been out injured for a few weeks, and it was good to see him get a run out after being sidelined for so long. We had loads more chances to extend our lead, but like I said, Bendtner just didn’t have the right boots on and the chances went begging. To be fair to Nick, though, he played really well and if only he’d finished one or two of those chances, he would have had the perfect game. He got subsituted shortly afterwards for Eduardo, and it was great to see that he got a standing ovation as he left. He’d put in the effort all game and everyone appreciated that. And like Arshavin said after the game, maybe he’s saving all his goals for Porto!

It wasn’t just Bendtner with the misses though, Eduardo and Arshavin both squandered opportunities. Burnley barely posed much of a threat so even though there were still very much into it, they never looked like scoring! The 3rd goal finally came deep into injury-time and was scored by Arshavin. After a short corner routine on the right, he cut inside and into the box, firing a low shot into the near post. The full-time went shortly after, and I think Burnley would count themselves lucky not to have conceded way more than that.

Here’s Wenger’s take on the game:

“It was closer than you and I expected but we had the chances to score plenty of goals. We didn’t take our chances today and that’s why I believe it was very tight until the end. It could have been four, five or six but as well they had a chance to make it 2-2 after a corner. In the end you are happy when you miss the chances we missed today but you get the three points.

We didn’t score the 4 we wanted, but it was still the 3 points we needed to remain firmly involved in the title race. It was great to see Theo fit and firing, and Arshavin showed us that he still knows how to do it. Eboue did really well at right-back too and if continues to play this well, Sagna may struggle to regain his place! I haven’t mentioned Nasri yet, but he had a brilliant game too, and he was my Man of the Match after Theo, if that makes sense! Wenger said this about Nasri:

“He is improving, and in the last month, he is getting better. He had a good game today. The ball he gave to Fabregas to score was absolutely fantastic. He has a great work-rate and runs well with the ball. His passing is getting better and is really improving.

We need our players to step up as we go into the last few games and Nasri’s shown that he is capable of doing that. He took charge after Cesc was taken off and I’m sure if Cesc can’t play against Porto that Nasri’ll be a good enough deputy. Arshavin is another player who will have to deliver big performances for us and I think he’s ready to do that. I thought he needed a rest before he got injured, so hopefully now he’s back, he can continue to deliver those excellent performances we know he can produce.

We still remain third in the table, but we’re level on points with Chelsea but they do have a game in hand. United currently lead the way with 2 points having played the same number of games as us. It’s very easy to see that the top 2 will drop points, especially as they still have to play each other! As long as we continue to win our games and stay in touch, I’m pretty sure we’ll be in the best position to take advantage when they finally do.

But for now, all we need to worry about is the next game.

PS- I forgot to mention ‘little’ Jack! You probably know he’s on loan at Bolton until the end of the season. He played against West Ham on Saturday and he scored a really lovely goal! Good to see Owen Coyle making good use of our Jack! Can’t wait to see what he can do for us next season.

Afternoon all, it’s game time… let’s have a look at today’s line up…

Almunia

Eboue – Vermaelen –  Silvestre – Clichy

Denilson – Nasri

Walcott – Cesc – Rosicky

Bendtner

Subs: Fabianski, Diaby, Sagna, Eduardo, Arshavin, Traore, Eastmond.

I’ll review the team shortly via the comments below….

A massive greeting to all from Dubai, it’s quite nice over here compared to London weather wise, although when I left London yesterday, I did enjoy a bit of sun and today in Dubai it is quite windy…

There is an interesting fact that I think I’ll share with you first – and that is – if we beat Burnley tomorrow by a score line of 4-0, we will be top of the table. Can you imagine thinking that a few weeks ago when we were 9 points behind the lead and conceding goals left, right and centre…? Let’s not worry about the rest of the fixtures, we have 10 fixtures left. We play Burnley tomorrow and that’s all that matters right now. Let’s take every game, one game at a time.

Team news ahead of tomorrow’s game sees a few injury worries but some good news too. We’ll hopefully see the return of Andrei Arshavin to the squad. With Tuesday’s game in mind and the lack of playing time recently, it’s important he starts the game or comes on for a period of time. He’s a game changer, a game winner, and can definitely contribute to both tomorrow’s and Tuesday’s game. Denilson and Diaby should also be back in the squad, but both will be coming back from an injury. Based on the last week or so, I’d predict Denilson gets a run out in the defensive midfield role as Alex Song is not available due to suspension. Diaby may not start but could start against Porto in midweek.

Arsene highlighted the injury concerns in his press pre-match conference earlier today saying:

“We have the luck that Denilson could be available again. He did not travel to Stoke last week because he had an injury to his calf. Arshavin could be available and there is a little, little chance that Diaby could be available again too. I am convinced that Denilson and Arshavin will be OK but for Diaby it is 50:50. Gallas is still out and we have a little problem with Sol Campbell. We will check that tomorrow. Carlos Vela will not be considered for Saturday because he comes back too late from international duty.  If we have good news from the other players coming back we should still have a strong squad out.”

Theo Walcott had roughly an hour for England midweek, and the players – in my eyes – is improving and starting to kick on – I really do think an injury free run in the team will help him be more consistent and more apt within the match. Arsene took time out to talk about Theo and I agree with Arsene entirely…

“I believe Theo will be a great football player, he is very young, he will be 21 this year, he will have a great future. I believe in him because he has a fantastic attitude, he’s an intelligent boy and he is highly motivated. These players always improve.”

And in reaction to Chris Waddle’s comments that “Theo is all pace and no brain”, Arsene said this:

“Don’t worry for him. I believe Theo has not only a football brain, but he has a brain, that means he will continue to develop at a very quick pace.”

Gallas and Campbell are most likely out too – the former not being risked as he’s yet to recover with a calf injury and the latter with a groin injury. At the back, I’d therefore expect a partnership of Silvestre and Vermaelen, which means that Vermaelen is likely to play on the right of the pairing, which will see three left footers at the back.

With Emmanuel Eboue really excelling at the moment, he’s a player that can also change a game and for that reason, I’d like to see more of him. Sagna is first choice at right back, but I think Eboue is more effective up front, or against teams where we don’t need to be too defensive. Okay, let’s take a look at the possible team:

Almunia

Sagna – Vermaelen – Silvestre – Clichy

Denilson – Nasri

Eboue – Cesc – Arshavin

Bendtner

With a bench of Fabianski, Traore, Bartley, Campbell, Diaby, Rosicky and Walcott

The only thing I can see is that if Diaby is fit and Campbell is fit, then they may start ahead of Silvestre and Nasri – but with a game so soon – on Tuesday – something we have to win (yes, I know I said one game at a time), when players at not 100%, then do you risk them. We will take one game at a time, let’s push on and hit Burnley for six or at least four (well, at least the 3 ponts)… I’ve managed to get through a post this week without mentioned Aaron Ramsey. Oops, I just did – oh well, I have a lot more to talk about regarding Ramsey, but I’ll leave it until after the Burnley and Porto games…

So, with Man United playing at 5.30 the same night – I would expect them to beat Wolves – we could grab top spot or joint top spot for a period of a couple of hours – who said we’re out of the title race?

As the furore around Ryan Shawcross spirals out of control, the media painting a picture of innocence and angelic-ness to the Stoke defender. Whereas papers and online papers portray Wenger and Ramsey as the bad guys. So, forget what’s happening. It’s a pile of nonense, the media are very biased to the homegrown players for obvious reasons and there is one set of rules for English players and another for foreign players. Paulo Di Canio was banned for 11 games for pushing a ref, whereas Shawcross has been banned for 3 games and earnt a World Cup call up for breaking someone’s leg.

Spare me the nonsense, spare me the “it’s not true”, “he’s innocent”, “Shawcross is not a nasty player”, it’s all codwallap.

Kieran Delaney mentioned this yesterday in the comments:

Of course nothing will happen until Rooney breaks his leg, then and only then when the FA consider punitive action.

And one of our commenters, a Welshman, named Jeffo also spoke about the incident and how it affects Wales as a nation…

In answer to your question I am Welsh and i am incredibly pissed off about this situation, we have suffered from a lack of quality players with a sprinkling of talented individuals for too long. At long last we have a lot of promising young individuals coming through and this bodes well for the future. However on the day Shawcross became England’s new hope in defence the player has crippled Wales most talented star of the future.

Next year Wales play England in the euro qualifiers I know a lot of you out their are England fans but i truly hope that Aaron comes back succesfully and runs rings round Shawcross and makes him look a complete gimp in an England shirt (and sends him home crying for a different reason).

Tony Pulis is welsh and right now I could shove him off Porthcawl pier for his glowing defense of his man (I do not use the player purposely).

And Alex Ferguson where’s your support for the lad with the broken leg who you tried so hard to sign?

The comment has been edited / censored, but you can find the original here.

Something I didn’t quite expect came out today, from a Mr Owen Coyle, and I think the Bolton attitude has got to him. Interestingly enough, we play his old club Burnley on Saturday…

“If you’re not motivated to go out there and be aggressive to begin with, to earn the right to play, then you’re going to be run over the top of and made to look foolish,” he said. “We all take pride in trying to make our players competitive, to go and earn the right, as we say in football, but there’s no way you’d say ‘Go and smash this and that’.”

I will eventually stop talking about the incident last weekend, but it’s true to say that Arsenal players do get fouled the most, and therefore by laws of the industry they will pick up more injuries. The problem is that the opposition have the least cards given against them. If every foul was called and every yellow and red card that was supposed to be given was actually dished out, we’d finish playing against 9 or 10 men every game.

When Real Madrid had the Galacticos, it was common place to see the opposition lose players to sending offs, because the team was that good. In the same vein, it’s not our fault if our players are technically very good and why should the opposition get away with consistent fouls?

Looking ahead to the weekend, we may have Abou Diaby back in the squad, which is great news considering we’re without Ramsey and Song (for the next 2 domestic games), which means we can restore a midfield of Diaby, Cesc and Denilson. Arsene has been talking of his re-interest in Felipe Melo and how he’s not had the season that was expected. He also said we’re still interested, but will Juventus sell the player they paid over £21m to buy on the cheap… now isn’t the time for transfer talk, but interesting that we’re still interested…

I’m off to Dubai tonight, so you may have a few articles coming up from JAT, Debs and Wills in the next few days… Adios for now…

As you may have noticed, I have taken my time to give you my feedback, having been in shock for a couple of days and more angry than sensible in the last few days, I am starting to look at the incident more objectively. A massive thank you to Debs, who yet again shared her opinions with us yesterday and helped some of us to put the incident into perspective.

The question I ask you now, is whether Ryan Shawcross should be banned for as long as Ramsey is injured?

Let’s look at the argument for and against…

Let’s start by looking at the early years of Ryan Shawcross when he was played for Man United’s reserves in Belgian.

The player you see writhing around in agony broke his leg and the perpetrator - indeed – was none other than Ryan Shawcross.

In fact Ryan has broken many a leg / ankle, the lad in the video, Francis Jeffers and Aaron Ramsey – not to mention that he nearly did it to Emmanuel Adebayor. So to say that Ryan is not that kind of person is a) wrong, b) misleading and c) sickening.

“Sir Alex rang Ryan after the game on Sunday to give him his support and told him that he shouldn’t miss out on England duty. These things do happen, unfortunately, and Sir Alex still thinks a lot of Ryan after having him for so long at Manchester United. He knows him as well as I do and knows he is not the sort of player to go out to deliberately hurt anyone. Sir Alex had obviously seen the incident and believed, like I do, that it was an accident. He told him he will get over it, even though he knows he’s hurting now. Ryan really appreciated the call and it’s given him a bit of a lift at a very difficult time.”

Remember the Ade incident?

Adebayor sustained his injury in a heavy tackle by Potters defender Shawcross, while winger Theo Walcott (shoulder) and right back Bacary Sagna (ankle) were also hurt during the clash. At the time Arsene said this…

‘Do you think Delap tried to play the ball when he tackled Walcott? Or that Shawcross tried to play the ball when he tackled Adebayor off the pitch. All the players have been injured deliberately.’

If Ryan Shawcross “isn’t that type of player” then who is?

Aaron Ramsey, a star for club and country will now be sidelined for about a year – God knows if he will come back to the player he was beginning to become. Ryan Shawcross has injured many many people, had a very bad disciplinary record will be banned for three games. The FA have dealt with the incident very badly, calling him up to the England squad just hours after the incident. Ridiculous.

Just another point of note… Ryan said after the game this statement:

“I would never, ever go out to hurt a fellow professional.”

Do you know he has said that four times before… interesting, hey?

Give the videos, pictures and general history, is there a case for Ryan being banned as long as Ramsey is injured?

Apologies for the lack of structure to today’s article, the noise coming out from the media is so off the mark. Ryan has been protected because he is English, and if anyone has any Welsh reaction to the incident, please send it to me. People say that it’s Aaron Ramsey’s fault for leaving his foot there. People are having a go at Arsene for complaining and saying that these tackles have to stop. Well codswallop to all those people – it’s plain an simple to see – Ryan Shawcross is that type of player – and his over aggressive game has injured a fellow professional and taken him out of the game.

I thoroughly believe that if that was Wayne Rooney who was injured for a year, and Aaron Ramsey the perpetrator, the media would have put him to the slaughter. Thanks to Dada from the comments on sending through the link, if you’re concerned about this and think we’ve put up with it for long enough, then complain.

http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/WhoWeAre/ContactUs.aspx

There is one person to blame here, not Arsene, not Aaron, but Ryan Shawcross. Let’s make the FA act.

I’ll leave you with a few words from Arsene about the injury and the title race.

“It will be tight until the end. But this group is so strong mentally and have a unity so this will give us one more reason to fight until the end and do it for him. We had some other problems two years ago. But on Saturday we had a midfield of Nasri, Fabregas, Ramsey, Song, Eboue. They have an average of 20 or 21-years-old. Up front, Bendtner is 21-years-old. At their age, to handle the game like they did is absolutely remarkable.”

Let’s do it for Aaron.

It’s been 2 days since the match at the Britannia, but it’s still very hard to come up with a match report as one just can’t help thinking of Aaron Ramsey’s injury and well-being. I’ll touch on that briefly before going on about the match and what it means for our season.

I’ve seen the tackle again, not because I’m sadistic or anything, just to have an idea of what happened exactly, if not I’ll still be in denial! I’ve also read loads of Articles on the issue, some stupid and some sensible, just to get a balanced view.

So both players went for the ball, which was a 50-50, with Ramsey coming off with the sort possible injury. With his leg in such a bad state, one’s attention immediately turns to the tackle. The issue is not whether or not it was intentional- no human being in their right mind would intentionally set out to cause such damage. But was it a dangerous tackle? To be honest, I’ve seen worse. It human nature to sometimes categorize tackles as bad or good, depending on the injury, but I think one needs to separate both. The injury was horrible, but that does not mean the tackle was equally horrible. There have been (and there will be) worse tackles than Shawcross’ which have caused (or will cause) way less damage. The only thing I can say about the tackle is that it was mistimed. It could easily have been a tackle by any of our players on a Stoke player. I’ve gone through all the emotions over the past few days, but one I haven’t gone through is blame for Ryan Shawcross. It’s a bit of a fine line because obviously Shawcross’ tackle caused the injury, but I’m not blaming him. I just can’t

If at all I would apportion blame to anyone, it would be those, managers and pundits alike, who go on about how the best way to play Arsenal is to kick them about. ‘They don’t like it up them’. But really though, does anyone? The physical battle is one of the things that make the Premier League loved by us fans and the players, but the suggestion that to stop Arsenal from playing, you need to get in their faces is wrong. For starters, we won the game yesterday and believe it or not, we can be physical as well. Just because we’ve got ’small’ players doesn’t mean they don’t get stuck in, or that they get scared when you tackle them.

But not only that, it encourages players to put that extra effort when tackling, and that’s what leads to injuries like poor Aaron Ramsey’s and Eduardo’s. If you keep hearing statements such as ‘Arsenal don’t like it up ‘em’, ofcourse you’ll put that extra effort in to rough them up, and that can lead to poorly timed tackles and nasty injuries. I’m not saying teams set out to deliberately to hurt us- I refuse to believe that- what I’m saying is that the notion that we’re soft touches who need to be roughed up every now and again is the  real problem that needs to be looked at. Who knows, maybe if  such views were not bandied around, we might have avoided these injuries.

I’m so gutted for Ramsey and will probably not feel any better about the whole issue until he’s back playing. I do think what we ought to do as Arsenal fans instead of castigating Shawcross to all ends, is to throw our support behind Ramsey and the team, because that’s the right thing to do. Fair enough if you’re mad and angry- I am, too- but it’s not worth it giving undeserved grief to Ryan. I’d rather spend all my time worrying about Aaron and wishing him well, than direct my anger towards a particular person, after all, I’m meant to be a supporter not a hater.

Get well soon, Aaron. It’s not going to be an easy way back for him, but I’m sure he’ll get help from the likes of Eduardo and Diaby who know exactly how he will be feeling. Hopefully he doesn’t get too down about it all and is able to concentrate on getting back to using his feet again. Football can always wait. But yeah, I can’t wait to see him back in an Arsenal jersey playing like we know he can, but for now, his well-being is the primary concern.

Now to the game itself…

So we started our usual sloppy selves and ended up being 1-nil down thanks to one of Delap’s customary throws. We failed to deal with it and Danny Pugh was there at the far post to nod it in. But like we always do, we slowly got back into the game, creating a few chances and it was no surprise when the equaliser came about 5 minutes to half-time. Fabregas down the right side, spotted Bendtner in a decent position in the box and provided the perfect cross which he met with the perfect of headers, bending it into the corner of the goal. It was a brilliant goal and a deserved equaliser. We continued to cause problems for Stoke and were proving that we were a match for them physically. It ended 1-1 at half time, but apart from the first few minutes, we put in a display to suggest that we could go on and win the game.

The second half started with us in the ascendancy and even though Stoke continued to pose a threat with their long throws, we were able to neutralise it most of the time. Sol and Vermaelen in the centre were dominant and seemed capable of dealing with it sufficiently. Clichy was back to his brilliant best and worked very hard defensively and offensively. Eboue was causing problems, and we even had a good shout for a penalty when Ramsey seemd to be fouled inside the box but the referee waved them away. But not long after came the unfortunate injury to Ramsey. It was pretty emotional seeing him lying there with his leg in an awkward position and credit to Stoke’s Glenn Whelan and Bendtner for staying by his side and trying to comfort him while the medics were being hurried on to the pitch. The referee showed Shawcross a straight red and he looked visibly shaken as he walked off the pitch.

There was a lengthy delay while Ramsey got treatment and the players all looked devastated, especially Cesc and Vermaelen. My mind automatically went back to 2 seasons ago when Eduardo suffered a similarly horrible injury. It was a bit eerie, seeing as both occurred at similar stages in the season when we were looking like real challengers for the title and both were also away at tricky grounds in the month of February. It was a totally horrible few minutes and in all honesty, I didn’t care much for the result. I was very worried about the effect it would have on the players who looked visibly shaken. Rosicky came on in place of Ramsey and 5 minutes later, Eboue was subbed for Theo.

But great credit to the lads, they put it all to one side after the restart and played with so much heart and courage and eventually secured the win with two more goals. Eduardo had a great chance to put us in the lead after he was played in, but he ended up shooting wide. The winning goal came in the last minute of normal time courtesy of a penalty after Danny Pugh had handled in the box, after Bendtner tried to feed to ball into the box. It was Fabregas to take the penalty and despite all the pressure, he slotted it confidently into the bottom right corner. The relief and emotion was evident as the players celebrated, Fabregas dedicating the goal to Aaron Ramsey. We continued to press forward and eventually got the third after a short corner on the left was played to Rosicky who cut inside and fired a fierce shot which Sorensen could only parry into the part of Cesc who responded quickly to set Vermaelen up for the simplest of tap-ins.

It was definitely a hard fought but well deserved win and I was immensely proud of the spirit shown by every single one of the players and it felt like watching them grow up right before our eyes. 2 seasons ago our title challenge ended that day when Eduardo got injured, but this time around feels different. The players showed that they were capable of dealing with adversity and that they are capable of fighting hard for the title until the end of the season. Wenger has always said we have a special team spirit and the lads demonstrated it yesterday after the game with that team huddle at the end. Sol, Cesc, Clichy and Vermaelen were all magnificent, showing their experience and pulling everyone together. I definitely saw something on Saturday which proved that we can go all the way this season, and if we do I’m sure we’ll all look to this game as the day the title was won.

We’re only 3 points behind Chelsea and with the run-in we’ve got, we’ve got a fabulous chance to prove the doubters wrong that we are capable of winning trophies. I certainly believe that we can do it this season. Let’s do it for Aaron Ramsey.

All supporters, readers and writers of WOA would like to extend our thoughts to Aaron Ramsey as he suffered a fracture of his ankle yesterday that will see him out of the game for the next twelve to fifteen months. The boy himself had been playing some of the best football of his career, and it’s a ridiculous shame that this type of horrific injury can and does still happen. As Arsene said “For a boy of 19 with his talent to be kicked out of the game like that is beyond words.” and that’s why I’ll take a moment to reflect on events before publishing my thoughts.

Our thoughts to Aaron and his family.