Stoke Preview: Must get back on track 4 December, 2009
Posted by lasagnechef in Arsenal News.trackback
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.
Is the snow falling across the screen an actual design or am I seeing things again?
Tony Pulis is a likeable man
Come on the Arsenal
Ha! Nice feature mate
who cares about pulis,we have to win 2morrow and im sure the playerss wont let us down
COME ON ARSENAL!!!!
I am glad you are looking forward instead of backward. Yes we have lost a few games,agreed. The fact is, any other team with so many injuries to the main squad would be struggling a bit against the strongest teams like Arsenal are. I mean, we are without RVP, Bendtner, Walcott, Diaby, Clichy, Gibbs, Njourou etc Nasri, Eduardo and vela have only just come back from injury and their form is not going to be great for a while as it does take a few games to get the sharpness back.
Arsenal have more injuries than most other teams. And it seems like this will happen all year round. So the next few games might be a struggle, but what can you expect?
If Man united were without evra, Fletcher, Rooney, Berbatov and Owen at the same time, they would struggle too for sure.
Keep the faith, support the team twice as hard on saturday, as they need the confidence and belief to get past a tough stoke side.
Cheers
I don’t agree with you guys, time is not in our side to stick with the kids. We should be buying at least three experienced players to pull the team out of this repeated situation. Once we start losing and having injuries the season ends for us it happened before and will happen again. Watch the struggle against Stoke and you will understand what I mean.
i totally agree with the comment above. we’re very unlucky with injuries. but im annoyed with arsene. He needs experience. i saw that against chelsea. Cesc was like a little boy at school loosing the ball and standing there with his head down. hes the club captain so he should act like it. he should be shouting instructions out and making the players have some fight. if we had vieira in the midfeild afainst chelsea we would have been fine because he could have sat there and did a keane on it. just defend and break the play up with song. then cesc would have all the space in the world that he wanted with the ball. I hate as well hoe arsene still plays denilson as a holding midfeilder when he cant make a tackle. the guy is an attacking midfeilder. you could see that in the days off the carling cup . he scores good goals. we need a big player there to show song a bit more. he has been brilliant this season along with the under rated but brilliant diaby. I f we got viriera in he would make the 2 world beaters. The team are very fragile. not power or pace bar walcot who is injured all the time. arsene needs to splash the cash in january. i think he should go for vieira , chilini , hulk would be the big strong guy we need. powerful and young too. or dzeko would be good. and we need another proper winger with lots off pace. i think a guy with great potential that arsene was linked with before he moved was babel. he is unbelievably fast. wenger could do a brilliant job with him.
Tomorrow.
almunia
sagna vermaelen gallas traore
eboue
fabregas nasri
arshavin rosicky
eduardo.
at least with eboue in the , we’ll have a worker and some good pace. hes not afraid off a tackle either. lets se thomas rosicky back to his best. perfect team. denilson too slow. come on the gunners.
alibaba,
we shall see wether we struggle against stoke
Morning all, I think Fuller will cause us some problems with his height and size today, but we should get back to out-scoring our opponents so I’m going for a 4-1 scoreline and I cant wait. C’mon you Gunners!
…….aaand alibaba you were wrong…..
Come on!!!!