Hello.
In a few hours time Arsenal will face Cardiff at their turf in what seems to be a tough fixture.
The Welsh side currently occupy fifteenth position in the table, but I don't think they can be underestimated. After all, they've beaten City to grab their first win of the campaign and went on to, quite fairly, draw United. If they turn up with a right attitude, it'll be a dangerous team to be up against.
Then again, we are also no pushovers. We've garnered 25 points from the last 10 league games, with the only defeat against a shabby United side. Not bad at all.
What is more, our defense is no longer leaky and error-prone. The thing has been mentioned numerous times already, but the league points were dropped because we were unable to conjure anything up front, rather than our because of our inclination to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Having a keeper in bang form also helps. Though our defensive abilities have been polished to almost a perfect state, it's just plain impossible to deprive the opposition (however bad they play) from all chances to score. And that's where Szscesny comes in. Just look at the importance and timing of the saves he pulled off even this week (against Southampton and Marseille) and we cannot hope for more. In an interesting twist, the Pole's outing against Marseiile happened to be his 125th game for the club and his 50th clean sheet. It's not quite every second of his games is a clean sheet, but it's impressive nonetheless. You can delve into the history of Arsenal's best goalkeepers to get some context.
Back to Cardiff, however. We have no new injures (thank God) and even Gibbs back. He's missed out due to some illness, but the important thing is, that he's back in contention. That probably means Kieran will start and Monreal will replace Gnabry on the bench. It's a bit of a shame we didn't see see more of the German, but I guess it's still early days for him. The signs of him becoming a good footballer are there, he was tied down to a new contract, so I expect to see more of him in a year or two. But not just yet, it seems.
However, I won't be too surprised, should Monreal start the game. He's played well against Marseille, his cameos as basically a left winger throughout the season were solid and his first goal for Arsenal was scored against a Welsh side, though it wasn't Cardiff.
All in all, Wenger will have his hands full, trying to figure out, whom to start and whom to bench, but it's better than having guys like Chamakh or Arshavin as the only real alternatives. It's even better, than having a bunch of kids (however promising) in reserve.
The midfield is the most crowded area right now, so I can't even bother to guess, who'll play where. It's Giroud up front and probably a Flamini-Arteta duo at the base, but that's about it. I may even be mistaken about Flamini. Or Arteta.
So, plenty of quality in this side to do the job. If we get a win, our lead at the top will extend to 7 points, seeing as how almost every one of our rivals plays tomorrow (some of them play against each other, which is very satisfying). But we are in a position, where we can afford to only care about how we play. Beautiful, isn't it?
Here's for the win today and I wish you all a very happy weekend. Until later
In a few hours time Arsenal will face Cardiff at their turf in what seems to be a tough fixture.
The Welsh side currently occupy fifteenth position in the table, but I don't think they can be underestimated. After all, they've beaten City to grab their first win of the campaign and went on to, quite fairly, draw United. If they turn up with a right attitude, it'll be a dangerous team to be up against.
Then again, we are also no pushovers. We've garnered 25 points from the last 10 league games, with the only defeat against a shabby United side. Not bad at all.
What is more, our defense is no longer leaky and error-prone. The thing has been mentioned numerous times already, but the league points were dropped because we were unable to conjure anything up front, rather than our because of our inclination to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Having a keeper in bang form also helps. Though our defensive abilities have been polished to almost a perfect state, it's just plain impossible to deprive the opposition (however bad they play) from all chances to score. And that's where Szscesny comes in. Just look at the importance and timing of the saves he pulled off even this week (against Southampton and Marseille) and we cannot hope for more. In an interesting twist, the Pole's outing against Marseiile happened to be his 125th game for the club and his 50th clean sheet. It's not quite every second of his games is a clean sheet, but it's impressive nonetheless. You can delve into the history of Arsenal's best goalkeepers to get some context.
Back to Cardiff, however. We have no new injures (thank God) and even Gibbs back. He's missed out due to some illness, but the important thing is, that he's back in contention. That probably means Kieran will start and Monreal will replace Gnabry on the bench. It's a bit of a shame we didn't see see more of the German, but I guess it's still early days for him. The signs of him becoming a good footballer are there, he was tied down to a new contract, so I expect to see more of him in a year or two. But not just yet, it seems.
However, I won't be too surprised, should Monreal start the game. He's played well against Marseille, his cameos as basically a left winger throughout the season were solid and his first goal for Arsenal was scored against a Welsh side, though it wasn't Cardiff.
All in all, Wenger will have his hands full, trying to figure out, whom to start and whom to bench, but it's better than having guys like Chamakh or Arshavin as the only real alternatives. It's even better, than having a bunch of kids (however promising) in reserve.
The midfield is the most crowded area right now, so I can't even bother to guess, who'll play where. It's Giroud up front and probably a Flamini-Arteta duo at the base, but that's about it. I may even be mistaken about Flamini. Or Arteta.
So, plenty of quality in this side to do the job. If we get a win, our lead at the top will extend to 7 points, seeing as how almost every one of our rivals plays tomorrow (some of them play against each other, which is very satisfying). But we are in a position, where we can afford to only care about how we play. Beautiful, isn't it?
Here's for the win today and I wish you all a very happy weekend. Until later