I’m back… Olympiacos Preview 29 September, 2009

I know I’m not great with getting up to date on here sometimes but two weeks without warning with no update is pretty poor, so I’m sorry. My internet was cut off without warning and I am back online as of this morning. It’s been quite surreal having no internet for this long, all I’ve had is Sky Sports News and word of mouth for Arsenal news. I’ve just got used to not knowing anything that’s going on.

For example I’ve just found out that Nicklas Bendtner wrote off his Aston Martin and he will miss tonight’s game as a result. Denilson is also out, he will miss two months with a back injury which is bad news for him. After the important part he played in last season, this year was set to be the one were Denilson really pushed forward. It’s a shame but lets just hope he can make it back for Christmas.

Theo Walcott is also out of tonight’s squad lacking match fitness but he (and Bendtner) should return for Sunday’s game against Blackburn. We could’ve done with Theo tonight but I’d rather we eased him in than rushed him back.

Vito Mannone will start again and lets hope it’s more of the same from the weekend’s performance at Craven Cottage. Obviously I haven’t been able to write about that game but I was watching and he was fantastic. He made some great instinct saves and without him we might not have taken all three points. By no means is he now ready to be our no.1 or anything like that but it’s promising for him and good for confidence. Another performance like that tonight and again on Sunday and Almunia will have some work to do when he returns.

Eduardo’s in the squad and he’ll be looking to put in another important performance for us. He’s got the goals when it’s counted this season and that’s what really matters.

Here’s how I think we might line up:

Mannone
Sagna – Gallas – Vermaelen – Clichy
Song
Fabregas – Diaby
Eduardo – van Persie – Arshavin

Tomas Rosicky could be ready to start; he’s done really well when he’s come on in the last few games but I’m not sure if he’s ready to be in the starting XI yet. It would be nice to see him but every time he plays at the moment I’m watching with everything crossed and my hands shielding my eyes. He doesn’t seem afraid to get stuck in though and (touch wood) he actually looks like he could be officially back.

Olympiacos beat AZ Alkmaar 1-0 in the first round of fixtures so join us at the top of the table on three points. I think it’s fair to say that we are probably the two favourites to progress so tonight is set to be one of the toughest tests of the group stages. A win would be great, we’d open a gap from the rest of the pack and give ourselves a great chance of an early qualification.

At Liege we found ourselves 2-0 down inside five minutes, one of the most incredible starts I’ve seen us have to a game and we were lucky to complete the comeback. Tonight Wenger should have his team concentrated from the very first second to avoid it happening again. I’m sure it wont, we’ve learned our lesson now.

It would be nice if we could get an early goal or two ourselves, force Olympiacos to come at us and we can dictate the play.

Enjoy it to everyone that’s going, I wish I could join you but I have work to go to.

Thanks for reading, speak to you tomorrow.