Stoke Preview: Must get back on track 4 December, 2009

Sorry I’ve gone missing for a week. I haven’t been crying in a corner at all these defeat or anything so don’t worry about that. Just been a busy week with work and things and I just never got round to it. I haven’t missed anything amazing though, two 3-0′s and some more injuries and suspensions…

I’m not that bothered about the loss in the week. We could never expect to beat a full-strength Man City side with our reserves so anything else was just a bonus for me. We kept it at 0-0 in the first half and looked like we could score but City were easily better than us and go through to the semis. Wenger got a bit of criticism for sticking with his youth policy but I don’t get the fuss. It’s a nothing competition and I don’t think the Carling Cup is really the sort of silverware we’re desperate for. All I hope now though is that he takes the FA Cup more seriously.

Before that, we had the defeat to Chelsea which was much more disappointing. We had our chances but they were just that bit better than us at the end of the day and you can’t really argue the result. Puts us a bit behind in the league table though but we have just to keep going.

Starting with Stoke tomorrow. I’m back in London for the game and I’m looking forward to cheering on the boys. I can understand one or two might be a bit down at the moment but that’s not going to help anything, we’ve just got to get on with things and end this losing streak.

Tony Pulisis is expecting an Arsenal reaction and is wary of a strong performance. He’s right; we’ll be going out to win as well as we can. It’s not going to be easy but we should certainly be taking three points from this.

We’ve lost Theo Walcott and Alex Song due to an injury and suspension respectively. It leaves us a bit short but we’ll manage. A bit annoying to see Theo injured again though, I think he’s only started one game this season. This was supposed to be a big one for him but he’s just had terrible luck with injuries. With RVP and Bendtner out at the moment this is a good chance for him to get a run in the team. He should be back for Wednesday night’s game though. We hope anyway.

It’s a choice between Denilson and Ramsey for Song’s spot and I think it will be the Brazilian. It’s good practice before Song goes off for the African Nations Cup and I believe Denilson will step in then too.

Here’s how I think we might start tomorrow then:

Almunia
Sagna – Vermaelen – Gallas – Traore
Denilson
Fabregas (c) – Nasri
Eboue – Eduardo – Arshavin

It shows injuries are bad when I have to have a quick check of the squad pages on Arsenal.com to see who we can actually play. It’s really gutting that we’re without van Persie for most of the season, Eduardo still hasn’t made an impression since the Dutchman’s injury and Arshavin’s not at his best either. Wenger has hinted quite strongly that we will be active in January so lets just see.

Stoke’s injury situation is much better than ours and pretty much have a full strength squad to pick from. They’re going to be tough to beat tomorrow. Tough in a literal sense too, without Diaby, van Persie and Bendtner we’re quite a short team and we have to make sure we’re not bullied off the park tomorrow. Get an early goal and we’ll be able to play how we like but if it’s still goalless with 20 minutes to go it will get quite frustrating.

I’m confident we can win tomorrow though. We really need to so we don’t fall further back off the pace and we need some confidence ahead of the Anfield trip next weekend. Plus, I fucking hate seeing Spurs ahead of us in the league.

Not much more I can say about tomorrow. If you’re going then try get behind the team however wet and cold it is, they need us. Thanks for reading.