Finally! It’s Monday!
I know…looking forward to Mondays is just weird, but we play tonight and that always gets me excited. We welcome City to our backyard hoping we can get three points off them. It’s funny that even though our record against City in recent times has not been bad, we haven’t won them at home since that lone Arteta goal after the Balotelli red card some years ago. We’ve had a ton of draws since then and a defeat.
So in terms of team news there’s still no change there, everyone from Aston Villa should be fit and we might have Alexis back. I don’t know if he’s participated in training with the rest of the team so it’s hard to say if he would have a place in the team.
This is a remarkable opportunity in the sense that Man City are not exactly at their most terrifying, to be fair neither are we, but I feel we are pretty much at the same level and if we play the way i’m sure we can, then we can win against the other Manchester team. They have a ton of scary players: Aguero (who seems to be back just in time for us…bummer), Silva, Toure…etc, but we’re not without our players who can hurt them.
Giroud has been in good form recently and with the whole ‘can’t score against the big teams’ monkey off his back, you can back him to find the goals for us. We have Ozil playing out of his skin, assisting left, right and center, he’s truly a 42 million man and he’s ours and that’s awesome.
Cech is great and Arsene Wenger was still talking about how important he is to the team and what he has brought:
“He has brought his experience, his calmness and his leadership as well,
“He has been good and highly focused.
“I don’t want to be detrimental to David Ospina because he was exceptional last year, but Petr Cech has done it all, so he is someone who gives you an aura, a charisma that is always important in the big games for the players”
He continued
“You always look around you in the dressing room before a big game and you think, ‘Are we strong enough?’ And these kind of faces help you to believe it. Also in the big games, the number of shots on target shrinks. But then the one save can be the difference in the end result.
“There is no history of teams winning things without having a great goalkeeper,
“I’m now 30 years in the job and as I said the other day you learn over the years that the goalkeeper is the most underrated position in football – and maybe the most vital one for winning things.”
(All quotes from www.arsenal.com)
He isn’t wrong is he? We can all see how much more assured we are because we have Petr Cech in goal and how much calmer the players seem knowing he is right there behind them. When we played Manchester United, we were three goals up, but he still made a lovely save from Anthony Martial, a save that if it hasn’t been made might have led to a United comeback. It was not a given, but it would definitely have been a concern especially as the save came at the end of the first half, that’s what Petr Cech brings to the team.
If I have any worries it will be from the center of midfield. I love Ramsey, but we’ll need him to be more positionally disciplined and help out. He needs to balance his attack and defending perfectly, we don’t have the Coq to clean up things, we have an ageing Flamini who is good, but you worry about him in these types of games. It would be lovely if he could whip out some of the Flamini of old and really boss the midfield, he has it in him, the question is if he will bring that side to the fore.
Well here’s me hoping for a win, Man U lost in the weekend, Liverpool lost, Chelsea won but that’s of no consequence really and Leicester are just being amazing, to keep in touch we’ll need to beat Man City…or at least not lose
Fingers crossed
#COYG!!!
