Liverpool Preview – Part 1 5 January, 2007

Tomorrow we make our first of two trips to Anfield in three days. First up it’s the FA Cup, which will hopefully see Wenger putting out a strong side. We’re looking okay selection-wise, Baptsita is back in the squad after his injury but we’re without the influential Cesc Fabregas through suspension. Wenger says Eboue will play but doesn’t want to risk Lauren by rushing him back early, I expect him to start on Tuesday. Diaby and Glass made their returns to training this week, which is excellent news, hopefully they’ll get match fit quickly and we’ll be seeing them back in the team soon.

We did very well against Liverpool earlier in the season beating them comfortably 3-0. A repeat of that would be fantastic but I expect it to be a bit closer than that tomorrow. The Scoucers have been doing quite well recently; they beat Bolton 3-0 on Monday with a convincing performance. We have to watch out for Crouch and especially his aerial threat at set pieces. Also Gerrard is one of the best in my mind and I feel we need to close him down and make it hard for him to play his game. If you let Liverpool play they can punish you but the same goes for us to be honest. It’s great we’ve got Thierry back and hopefully he’ll cause some problems tomorrow as will RVP who had a great game on Tuesday night. Kolo and Phil need to keep it tight at the back but if they perform like they can they’ll have no problems.

I’m making to trip up north tomorrow. I’ve been exited for this one for some time now and hopefully Arsene doesn’t disappoint me with a weak team. I’m not sure if he’ll put 4 or 5 across the middle but I can understand the reasons behind both. This is the team I hope Wenger picks:

I’d like to see Baptista alongside Gilberto but I’d be extremely surprised if Wenger played him in this one. I can’t really thing of anyone else Wenger would play in the middle ahead of Flamini anyway. If Arsene does go for a 4-5-1 I’d expect that same team with Van Persie moving to the wing and Rosicky dropping more central. Even with all those absences I think it’s quite a good team and one that can cause Liverpool some problems. I’m sure it’s going to be a great game tomorrow. Liverpool vs. Arsenal and it’s the FA Cup. Both teams will be desperate to win the trophy this year and going out at this early stage would be a disaster. I’m pretty confident ahead of tomorrow’s game but we’ll see how it goes, you never know how Arsenal are going to play, hopefully tomorrow it’s good.

Unfortunately, Anthony Stokes looks to be on his was out of Arsenal. Wenger is letting him go and doesn’t seem that upset about it. If a reserve player goes on loan and does brilliantly well and we sell him what does it say to the other youngsters? I was hoping we’d keep Anthony but it doesn’t look that way. I can’t believe Arsene is giving Aliadiere a chance instead of Stokes. The whole thing is just bizarre to me but it’s looks like he’ll be off to Charlton next week for about £2m or so.

Another International friendly has been arranged for the Emirates stadium next month. Brazil vs. Portugal will take place on the 6th February. The South American derby was a huge success the other month and now we’ve got the samba stars doing their stuff here again. Unfortunately I didn’t get to the last game but I might go to this one, I can imagine it would be interesting to see a team other that Arsenal playing and I very rarely get to internationals.

Joe O’Cearuill has joined Brighton on a month’s loan just as Matthew Connolly did recently. O’Cearuill joined Arsenal from the Watford reserves so I don’t really expect him to make it big for Arsenal in the future to be honest. All the best to Joe with his loan.

Right, it’s off to Anfield tomorrow morning. I’m predicting 2-0 With Henry and Gilberto scoring. I’ll be coming down with a massive grin on my face if that’s what happens otherwise it’s going to be a very long 4 hours back. I’ll have a match report up Sunday…probably, until then.