Evening everyone.
Tomorrow we have a game against Spurs in the FA cup and it's the last game before a bit of a break.
This means we'll be able to throw everyone forward, something that Wenger acknowledged:
“I just consider that it is our next game - we are Arsenal Football Club and we want to win the next game, that is vital for us.
"In this case I consider it a top level Premier League game, that means I have to play a team who has a chance to win a top level Premier League game."
Which is really good to hear. We've treated cup games as a chance to rest some key players in seasons past and sometimes it just didn't come off. Our exits to Blackburn and Bradford last year still hurt.
On the downside, we don't quite have a lot of players to choose from. Gibbs and Ramsey remain sidelined, while Giroud and Ozil may also fall short. Not to mention Bendtner, who is out for several weeks, though the manager cannot yet pinpoint the exact amount of time the Dane will miss.
We can still put out a pretty combative starting eleven (with Walcott up front, I hope), but the bench is going to look pretty empty, apart from a couple of defenders and Rosicky.
It's not catastrophic because it's for one game only. Giroud, Ozil, Gibbs, the Ox and maybe even Ramsey should be available for our next game. This does mean, however, that we'll have to win it with basically the starting eleven.
Another problem is that we are definitely short up front with Bendtner out and the manager may have to think about buying a striker. There were reports all over the press that Berbatov is our target (he's not, thankfully) and rumors persist about Diego Costa, but Arsene seems to view Bendtner's injury as key to his activity in the transfer market. After the Dane's outing against Cardiff, I think he deserves to be considered a genuine back-up to Giroud.
The manager has also touched on how he'd like to win the FA cup to end this trophy drought. At the start of the season, I would have said it is our most realistic chance to have a go at a trophy. Now I think it's the best, but not the only chance. We shouldn't treat the game lightly, because we may win something else, though. In a way, we are lucky to play a relatively strong team right from the start to keep our concentration levels up.
Tottenham will arrive on the back of a win at Old Trafford, so they'll be up to the challenge and can punish us for any mistakes we make. We don't have to fear them, hell no, but we should be wary.
Hope we'll win tomorrow and go into this mini-break with a draw and four straight wins to show for our effort during Boxing Day period. That's what we deserve.
Back later with a review