Middlesbrough v Arse Preview 8 December, 2007

Well well well…here I am once again, three o’clock on a Saturday and no football to attend to. Our game’s at 1:30 tomorrow and shown on Setanta, so get subscribing or much better, get down the pub.

As I said yesterday, we are without four of our best players and losing all that creativity and talent we’re struggling in these away games finding ourselves under pressure for a lot of the game. We’re missing the midfield duo of Flamini and Fabregas terribly, however Diarra has stepped up to the opportunity and has done brilliantly in my opinion. Gilberto’s done well actually too, he was sloppy in Seville but he’s come back from that and looked a little like the Gilberto we used to know against Newcastle.

Going forward, Hleb is really missed. Tomas Rosicky cant quite do the same job as Alex has this season. Eboue’s been hot and cold. He’s started to show some signs of a decent winger however he goes and does something silly like diving to make up for his positives. He’s still keeping Walcott out the side though.

Up front we’ve been without Van Persie for some time but we’ve managed. Adebayor has taken the goal scoring responsibility and find himself top scorer in the Premier League. In Robin’s absence we haven’t really found the right partner for him though, resulting in a lot of 4-5-1 formations. Theo is far too inconsistent, Eduardo is similar but he is still adapting to England. Recently, I’ve been most impressed with Bendtner, he hasn’t earned himself a start yet but I think he should tomorrow. He is self-confident and he really wants to do well and prove a point. I say give him the chance.

Can you pair Ade and Nicklas though? Well there’s only one way to find out. Here’s how I’d pick the team tomorrow lunch time:

With that team there’s the 4-4-1-1 option and we could also allow Rosicky freedom in the middle by pushing Diarra out wide or something. Denilson, Walcott and Eduardo give an attacking option if things aren’t going our way. I would have Diarra (the Flamini-type role) and Denilson (the Cesc-type role) in the middle but I think Gilberto must start.

I’m quite looking forward to this. I’m interested to see whether we’ve learnt anything from our last couple of games. ‘Boro are struggling and we’re clear favourites but it wont be that easy. A win would be great, 7 points out of these 3 away games is a good return. A draw wouldn’t be the end of the world but I’m hoping we can come away with all the points here.

I’ll have a match report up at some point, stay tuned. See ya.