Football’s a battlefield and Arsenal are warriors.
Think about it: Arsenal lost their most important defender and their first choice keeper and went on to keep a clean sheet after. Not bad.
I didn’t give Djourou any credit yesterday, it was hard to give credit to him because Senna and Adebayor overshadowed everything else. But to come on, in a Champions League quarter final, under fire, hostile territory, down 1-0, and to just put in a solid performance would normally deserve at least a mention. Same for Fabianski, all he did was come on for an injured keeper, without warm-up, down 1-0, and promptly make two key saves. No wonder then that he thinks he should be a first choice keeper.
You’ll forgive me I’m sure, my oversight, especially now that they have been duly recognized for their contributions. Maybe Arsenal are warriors?
Cesc too, deserves some credit. He’s out there, playing in a CL 1/4 final, not 100% fit. It certainly shows the requisite desire for him to be out there, even if it does leave us vulnerable to the types of goals Senna scored.
The answer there is for the team to take a good look at the tapes and say “ok, the Captain needs our help, and we need his brilliance, we all need to step up.” Certainly Titus Bramble and Lee Cattermole aren’t going to take it easy on Cesc this weekend. They’ll be looking to exploit just this kind of weakness. So, while I don’t count the Wigan game as that important in the race for 4th place, I do see it as important for solving some of the tactical weaknesses that Chelsea and Villareal will try to exploit over the next two weeks.
Throw in that Gallas is out for the rest of the season, England’s Future Number One is out for 3 weeks with an ankle injury and now it’s being revealed that Clichy picked up a back injury and more than ever the team will need to circle the wagons and plump up our team work. Will Kieran Gibbs feature against Chelsea and Villareal or will Wenger put in Silvestre? Tough choice there and I suspect we’ll get a preview into Wenger’s thinking against Wigan.
Wigan Wigan Wigan… Maybe Wigan will be important after all. It’s an away game, against a tough team that can’t be taken lightly. It’s a real shame that we can’t catch the game live here in the States: FSC has the rights to the game and have decided to replay it… at Midnight Eastern Time. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why: it’s not a retardedly early kickoff and there aren’t other, better, games on at 7am. I mean, come on, Chelsea v. Bolton over Wigan v. Arsenal?
Sigh
Honestly, I think us American Gooners are just a bit spoiled by the veritable cornucopia of games we get to watch. Just a bit. We have so many options as Gooners that when one or two weekends a year aren’t broadcast we get a bit… uppity.
Imagine if you were a Spuds fan? Ok, besides spending a lifetime commemorating that one win over Arsenal, the only time you’d ever get to watch your team live would be when they play Arsenal.
That would suck.
So, Arsenal face Wigan on Saturday at 9pm local time (tape delay) and I guess I’ll have to do something else with my Saturday until I can watch the match. It’s supposed to be nice, I think I’ll mow the lawn and get a jump on the garden.
See? It’s good that Arsenal are on tape delay!
