Happy Monday 17 September, 2007

Monday mornings are dreaded by everyone but I think I speak for us all when I say us Gooners couldn’t wait to get into work today and have their little dig at our Tottenham supporting colleagues. Marvellous. I hope you all said your piece.

If you haven’t been at work today then I’m sure you’ve been staring at the Premier League table and seeing 1. Arsenal…and then seeing we have a game in hand…and then seeing our next games are Derby, West Ham and Sunderland. Wonderful.

However, Adebayor is asking us not to get carried away and talking about the title already is a bit early.

“We are learning and we are playing good football. If we carry on like that we’ll see where we are at the end of the season.”

On Saturday you could see Emmanuel was enjoying the win just as much as us fans were and I’m sure he’s pleased with the positive August and September we’ve had so far. We’ve made a good start to the season and if you think back, if it wasn’t for that cock-up by Lehmann against Blackburn then it would’ve been a 100% start, plus an extra 2 points ahead of the top four. West Ham won’t be easy but our next three games are against recently promoted teams so we should be taking 3 points from those games. I would take 7 points, however, a team that wants to challenge for the title must win these games.

Arsene has been talking about Ade saying what his inclusion does for the team:

“When he is not in the side you see that a lot of presence goes out of the team. Sometimes he was frustrating because he can miss an easy chance but on Saturday he showed the type of chances he can take. He is a constant threat in the air.”

Adebayor has a lot of critics but Arsene says he does a lot more on the pitch than some might notice. I don’t think Emmanuel played too well on Saturday at times. In the first half he played a few misplaced passes and his shots weren’t always on target. However there were flashes of his talent and at times he caused the Spurs defence some troubles. Later on in the game he really flourished, with the home side tiring he found more space, and with it, confidence. In the end he produced two important goals and carried on his run of scoring against our most biter rivals.

Our attention must turn to Europe now though as we face Seville at home on Wednesday night. They are the trickiest team in the group and Wenger has been warning us not to underestimate them. He believes they are ‘one of the best sides in Europe’. We are the two favourites to qualify, even though we’ve had to reach this stage through the qualifying stages we are up there with the top sides in the tournament.

A draw would be acceptable but if one team were to lose then they’d be on the back-foot early on in the group stages. Neither side will want to risk losing so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a draw. Luis Fabiano is back from injury for the game and we’ll have Senderos back from suspension. I’ll have a proper match preview up before the game.

Until then.