Old Trafford trip in FA Cup: Draw must’ve been fixed 28 January, 2008

The FA Cup draw was made this lunchtime and we’ve been picked to face Manchester United at Old Trafford. I’m sorry, but don’t we always get a hard tie in the draw? We got Burnley in the 3rd round, that’s not bad but they’re still not bad. There were 6 Premiership teams in today’s draw and I was certain we’d get one of them. What’s more annoying is that Chelsea always get the easiest draw; they’ve got Huddersfield Town at home. It’s stupid the amount of times we draw Premiership teams. Maybe it’s something to do with being ball no.1? Maybe it’s something to do with Roman Abramovich and some cheeky payments to Trevor Brooking?

Anyway, it’s a massive tie and by far the game of the round. It’s a few days before the 1st leg of the Champions League knockout games too so it’ll be interesting to see if anyone is rested. I have a feeling Arsene would’ve planned to play a second string 11 in this match but now he’s seen we’ve got United away he might think differently. The result in this game can have a big effect on our performance against AC Milan and indeed it can have a physiological effect in the title race.

We’ll think about the game in more depth nearer the time; the game will be played on either the 16th or 17th of February.

We’ve got a little bit of injury news today. Toure picked up a groin problem away with the Ivory Coast but he’s only going to be out for 8-10 days. Rosicky had to come off after 10 minutes on Saturday but his hamstring doesn’t look that bad, he’ll miss tomorrow night’s game but he might be ok for the weekend. Also, van Persie is returning to training on Tuesday but, of course, he won’t be available for another two or three weeks.

There’s a brilliant quote from Adebayor about the Bendtner incident:

“We are big guys, so we talk about it. It is behind us already. I am No 25, and he is No 26, so in the dressing room we sit very close. Sometimes it does happen. A child can fight with his father, and they are still friends again.”

So the message to Nick is: “Who’s your daddy?” Heh. In all seriousness, I think they’ll be over it now, it really wasn’t anything much and tempers do go wild when you’re 4-0 down to the scum.

Wenger’s also been talking about playing Walcott on the wing and Lehmann starting in the FA Cup.

I’ll write up a match preview either tonight or tomorrow for the Newcastle game. Until then.