Arsenal vs. Roma Preview 23 February, 2009

We need to forget about Saturday’s game now and focus on the big game tomorrow night. You don’t need me to tell you how important this game is – it’s the knock out stages of the Champions League.

I believe that Roma are a team that we can beat, but you just never know with us. We can either play like total idiots or geniuses. We seem to pick and chose our games to perform in and I’m hoping that tomorrow is one of those days. We’ve played well when it’s mattered and proven that we can do it.

On Saturday we were probably quite unlucky not to win. If one of those early chances had gone in then it would’ve totally changed the game and it could’ve been another Cardiff-style performances. We’re going to need to learn to take our chances, Roma wont allow us that many opportunities so if we do get through then we cant afford to fuck it up.

It looks like it’ll be van Persie and Bendtner up front again. Nicklas didn’t play well on Saturday, but he has shown this season that he can perform – he needs to step up tomorrow night. Arshavin is cup-tied and then we have all the same injuries from the weekend. I’m writing this on Sunday night so I haven’t heard any team news yet. Clichy could be out after limping off this weekend. I guess you’ll hear that today or tomorrow.

A bit early for me to guess the team but here I go anyway:

Alumina
Sagna – Toure (c) – Gallas – Gibbs
Eboue – Song – Denilson – Nasri
Bendtner – van Persie

Arsene Wenger has been talking about Denilson’s role tomorrow night. It’s going to be him and Song in the middle and they’re going to need to play well. Here’s what Arsene said:

“Denilson will have an important part to play in the Roma game and I believe the whole team will have an important part. When you play against Roma you know there is one battle you cannot lose and that is in midfield because that is their strong point. They play with a congested midfield and with a lot of short passing on the ground. If you lose that battle you will be second best.

If you look at the numbers and the amount of balls he wins, he is one of the top midfield players in the country on many indexes. He doesn’t talk too much be he is very efficient.

I am surprised how little credit he got for what he has delivered since the start of the season. I think he has improved tactically in his first pass and physically in the challenge. He is much stronger than a year ago. You can see today when he makes a tackle he wins the ball. I am convinced he will be even stronger in six months.”

Denilson has improved this season, I wasn’t his biggest fan at the beginning but he’s settling in nicely now. He isn’t very noticeable in games but he does his job well and is no doubt a full first team member now. He’s a good tackler and his distribution is good – Wenger’s right, he needs to have a big game tomorrow night.

The back five are also going to have their work cut out. Roma are a quick side and attack well. Our defence has been playing quite well recently so I’m hoping they’ll keep their recent clean sheet record.

I’m predicting a draw for this one. A 0-0 wouldn’t be a bad result but a score draw might put the pressure on in the second leg. A win would be great; not only would it obviously put us in a good position to get into the quarter finals but it would do our confidence some good. I’m worried that if we lose we could have too much to do in the second leg – but by then we could have some people returning from injury but we’ll talk about that all nearer the time.

If you read the Sunderland match report you’ll know that I’m off to Amsterdam today. In fact, by the time you’re reading this I’ll already be there. I was out there last year and I watched some of Euro 2008 so I’m thinking I’ll go back to that same bar for the Roma game.

I don’t think I will be updating the blog whilst I’m out there, so no match report. I’m back on Thursday night so I might talk to you then, if not then Friday.

Well I better be off now, got stuff to sort out. Enjoy the game and I’ll speak to you in a few days. Thanks for reading.