Van Persie back but Gallas out 20 November, 2006

In today’s training session William Gallas picked up a thigh strain in the last few seconds of training. It just shows our luck and the problem will see him out for a few weeks. An injury to a player is always bad, however on this occasion we have talented back up to step in for Bill: Djourou or Senderos will fill in at centre back alongside Toure. I’m not nervous at all about one of these two filling in for Gallas as I know and they’ve shown that they are very comfortable centre-backs, Djourou has already impressed earlier this season but I think the place will go to his fellow countryman, Senderos.

Other news from today’s training ahead of tomorrow’s match was a return for Van Persie, Ljungberg and Gilberto. Robin picked up a foot injury in the first half against Newcastle and Arsene Wenger admitted it could be bad, but it was only minor and he had an extremely fast recovery and could play against Hamburg tomorrow night. Ljungberg and Gilberto were unavailable for Saturday’s match but have now returned to training and are in the squad; Arsene has said though he doesn’t think he’ll start Freddie after 6 weeks out which will probably see Walcott starting on the wing.

So I’m expecting a 4-5-1 of Lehmann, Eboue, Toure, Senderos, Clichy, Hleb, Fabregas, Flamini/Baptista, Gilberto, Walcott and Henry. I hope we don’t just play 5 across the middle all the time now, last season we switched between that and a 4-4-2 in domestic and European games but this season we’ve opted for a 4-5-1 in all competitions. The formation does not favour Henry as he needs another striker up there supplying him with the ball, hence his poor scoring record this season and that’s not the only reason why the 4-5-1 doesn’t suit us. I hope Wenger will play a 4-4-2 more regularly this season but I doubt that’ll start tomorrow night.

There isn’t a great deal of other news. We’re being linked with this ‘Edu’ guy but I very much doubt it’s true. Wenger said recently that we wont strength the squad in January and as much as I want him not to, he’ll stick by his words. Speaking of Edu, our former midfielder has picked up a serious knee ligament injury that’ll see him miss the rest of the season. So the curse of players that leave Arsenal goes on and I hope he makes a full recovery as soon as possible. I never hate players that leave Arsenal, and Edu is one of those players that I still love. Obviously I absolutely hate Ashley Cole but he’s the only one who’s been a dick to us. And as for Jose Reyes, I don’t hate him. I’ve heard him getting booed and slagged off but I’m not one of them: he never did anything to us, he just never really settled here and if he doesn’t like it in England there’s nothing we can do. But back to Edu, I wish him a quick recovery with this horrible injury and can carry on with his football at Valencia soon.

Arsene Wenger has been saying he’s not giving up the title fight just yet. We may be dropping points unnecessarily but as long as it’s not mathematically impossible I know Wenger will keep up the chase. It’s looking less likely that Arsenal will bring the title back to North London this year but as long as we’re up there putting pressure on the leaders all the way I will be a satisfied Gooner. This is what Wenger told arsenal.com:

“It’s not impossible, we just have to fight to win the next game and see where that takes us. If players want to play regularly for Arsenal and they give up when we are still in November, there is just no point in any of us being here. Other teams can slip up as well. It’s all about having patience and starting with a determined attitude. We gave them [Newcastle] too much to hold on to. We did well in the second half but we need that focus in every game that we play. A team always adjusts their focus to the difficulties they expect to meet, but you don’t always get what you expect in a game. That is why we must not take the opposition into consideration when we prepare and instead concentrate on what we want to do, and how we want to do it.”

I hope we do get a little bit of luck his season and if we are up the top chasing Chelsea and chasing Man Utd, when they slip up we should be there to gain on them.

That all the Arsenal news there is really. There’s a bit of news about The Cannon though, I’ve changed the URL to http://the-cannon.com, I’ve always had this link but now the site fully runs off that address so please use that from now on. Many readers I’m sure use the ‘.wordpress’ address and I have made it so that now links to the new address. Also I’ve added a few thumbnail images on The Club page and I’ve finally updated the Kits page so all the images look the same with that rectangle underneath instead of that old blending gold and blue style. I’m still trying to get that ‘Next Game/Last Game’ thing back but I’m having a few problems there and it’s just not working. I’m trying to get them back but I do it and then they’re not there, I’ll have to work out why. And finally, today The Cannon got it’s 80,000th hit, thanks for that. Have a good day.