Despite the supposed big match on Sunday, all eyes will be on the Molineaux for Saturday’s late clash between Wolverhampton and Arsenal. Typically, this wouldn’t be a big game but with the Arsenal in such rare form of late, half of England will be watching and hoping that they are dismantled by the defensive-minded West Midlanders, and the other half will be hoping for another gem of an Arsenal match.
And who could blame them? In all competitions, Arsenal have netted 51 goals. That’s 51 goals in just 18 matches for an average of 2.83 goals per and no team has kept a clean sheet against Arsenal yet this season (touch wood). In fact, in 18 games just three teams have managed to keep Arsenal to 1 goal. And with the goals pouring in from all over the pitch odds are good that Arsenal will manage to get on the sheet.
Despite, or as Arsene Wenger says because of, their high flying start Arsenal do have a bit of an Achilles heel: aside from the 6-1 win over Everton their away form is mediocre at best. If you remove the 6-1 win, Arsenal are 3-2-2 in all competitions and have scored 12 goals and conceded 11. This away form gives their detractors hope that Wolves can secure some points.
Mick McCarthy is a no nonsense manager who will put an organized defensive team out on the pitch. Their midfield is not afraid to get stuck in and they will be playing with a lot of energy — as befits a team who are on 7 days rest. Arsenal will be harassed and harried by the likes of David Edwards who will try his best to mark Cesc out of the game. Wolves feel like they are on a bit of good form, having played three consecutive draws, one which was a 2-2 comeback against Premiership surprise Stoke.
In attack they will feature former Spurs academy player Michael Knightly who will be looking to get down our flanks and put the ball in to their leading scorer Kevin Doyle. Playing in their new 4-3-3 formation Arsenal’s team defense will be crucial to keeping the Wolves at bay. That means all the players, all of them, will need to be tracking back and helping out.
As far as rotation and team lineups tomorrow, Wenger always keeps things close to his chest, but has hinted that Nasri and Rosicky might get a start tomorrow. With Bendtner still out and Walcott a few weeks away from training, much less match fitness, Nasri will almost certainly reprise his role from Wednesday though on the left instead of on the right. That means that I am predicting that Wenger will rest Arshavin and start Rosicky on the right. The rest of the team should snap back to the regular lineup of Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Song, Diaby, and Cesc with RvP up front.
Arsene is also “big upping” Robin van Persie and Fran Merida saying that he wouldn’t exchange the striker for anyone in the world and saying that signing the young midfielder would be “massive.” Robin is in tremendous form at the moment, having scored and/or assisted in every one of the last 7 Premiership matches, and I expect him to start tomorrow as well. As for the flap over Merida, there’s a lot going on there — he’s 19 and he’s clearly a talented boy who has only had 10 appearances for Arsenal in 4 years. So, you can sort of see why he might be balking at a contract. That said, the team who is turning his head at the moment (Athletico Madrid) might be able to offer him first team football, but it would be like going from Arsenal to Hull. If you consider the fact that he’s a Barcelona boy and Athletico are a Madrid team, you can see why folks are wondering what the deal is.
Anyway, as for viewing the match, it’s on ESPN in the UK and Fox Soccer Channel in the U.S. Kickoff is at 9:30am PST and I’ll be doing a liveblog of the match, so, if you’re into that sort of thing, join us here at 9am or so.
Right, that’s it for today. See you tomorrow at 9am.
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I bet this is the first time the word ‘reprise’ has been used in a football blog.
Is Merida actually a Catalan, i.e. is Barca the club he supports, as opposed to the one where he began his career? Anyway, I can’t figure out what the agent is on about. I mean, I see the point of pretending you’ve been deluged with offers so as to invite more or improve the contract on offer from Arsenal, but by implying the player is emotionally attached to a particular club – and Atletico are not in financial good shape – you’re surely sending out the message that that’s the only place he’d be willing to go? It makes no sense, but nor does Merida’s failure to sign. Someone in the fruit and veg market this morning told me Merida’s girlfriend is the problem – she wants to go home – but have no idea where that rumour came from.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:06 am
I need to know: What is a fruit and veg market????
November 6th, 2009 at 8:15 am
A market where they sell mostly fresh fruits and vegetables amongst other things; not a supermarket, but a local market, Tim.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Just a street market with stalls selling, mainly, fruit and vegetables, though it was the man at the clothes stall who told me about Merida…
November 6th, 2009 at 9:59 am
@Mia, merida actually supported athletico madrid as a child..thats what his agent was claiming earlier this week anyway
Merida should just sign the contract and be done with it and if he thinks that other Madrid team is at par with Arsenal, then he is deluded.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:02 am
@LRV, at his age, playing regularly for a not-so-great club is better than riding the bench of a great club.
November 6th, 2009 at 10:30 am
@b, Not really, the education he’ll get at Arsenal is worth far more than the crap he’ll be playing with at Athletico.
At Arsenal he trains with Cesc Fabregas, possibly the best player in the world right now. With Aguero going to Chelsea, who will he play with at Athletico? Reyes?
November 6th, 2009 at 11:14 am
@Tim, at some point education has to make way for experience. Merida is 19 now, physically he’s looking good, and no matter what you think of Atletico or the Primera in general playing there week in and week out would outweigh the benefits of training with what are perhaps superior players. I do hope he stays and in the long run i think it’d turn out better for him if he does, but if he decides he wants to play now i really can’t blame him, especially if there are adaptation issues there as well.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
If he leaves now those slightly miserable years playing in the reserves in a cold, grey country will have been completely wasted. He’s just been promoted to the first team, he came here because he’d get a chance earlier than he would in Spain, so why leave now when he’s on the brink of doing what he came for – unless his girlfriend is forcing the issue?
For those of you lucky enough not to be in England, I should explain that the burning issue over this weekend’s games is … POPPIES. The Daily Mail – who else? – has instituted a campaign to divide humanity into god-fearing poppy-wearing patriots and subhumans in league with al-Quaeda who are not wearing poppies. All Premiership clubs are having to sit up late into the night embroidering poppies onto shirts. A few clubs, United and Liverpool included, have refused – talksport is calling for a points deduction. Dunno yet what Arsenal are doing. Maybe we could email them and suggest we have white poppies rather than red – the white poppy being a respectful-to-the-fallen but anti-war thing. Poppy fascism, the Guardian is calling this nonsense.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I have never understood how the poppies are supposed to help the dead. Actually, there are a lot of things that I have never understood.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:43 am
@LRV,
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)
November 6th, 2009 at 8:48 am
I get your point!
November 6th, 2009 at 8:47 am
It’s to help injured soldiers, not dead ones. The money you pay for the poppy goes towards their support in old age. I don’t wear a poppy myself (unless I can find someone selling white ones) but I do put money in the tin. I wouldn’t even mind wearing one if I could attach a lengthy essay setting out my precise political position on poppies … I saw some Italians buying them the other day in Oxford Street who clearly thought they were a fashion thing – che belissimi!
November 6th, 2009 at 8:46 am
@Mia, Arsenal will be wearing poppies for tomorrow’s match:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/poppy-shirt
It’s always seemed odd to me, as a veteran and son and grandson of veterans, that veteran’s day is used by the right as a call to war rather than as a call to peace.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Oh well, I guess the red looks very fetching on our away kit.
November 6th, 2009 at 8:57 am
@Mia, Plus! we won’t have any points deducted!
November 6th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Good thing none of our players are German, though. If we’d still had Jens, would he have had to wear a red poppy?
November 6th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
@Tim,
i remember arsenal wore poppy embroildered(?) shirts last year and donated the proceeds from the auction. basically we were the only ones and we did before it was in vogue.
now we are being forced to by a media campaign? british press – shameful yet again
November 6th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
@Mia, I just wish Arsenal had the could have stood up to the Daily Mail’s extortionist campaign like Manchester United. Our problem is that we are not Manchester United, the pride of England but Arsenal the ‘pride’ of France, Africa, Holland, Denmark, Russia, Belgium and Spain. At least Marina Hyde is the lone voice of reason among the media who has attacked the Daily Mail’s brow beating insistence about poppy wearing.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I agree, I’d have been really proud of them if the club had made a substantial donation but told the Mail to fuck off, but with Hill-Wood in charge – upper-crust, military, a bit thick – it was pretty much inevitable we’d comply.
Let’s all put in a little money and bid for Eboue’s shirt in the auction. I think 7am gets thousands of readers a day. We can do it. It will be proudly displayed in the 7am window of honor.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
@Sex Fabregas, Well, 1,500 readers a day divided by the price I expect Eboue’s shirt to fetch, $50, means that everyone needs to put in 3 cents!
November 6th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
@Tim,
Awesome! What a deal!!! And you always wanted an Eboue jersey!
November 6th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Count me in for three cents.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:41 am
@Mia, Eboue! I love that lad! Phfwaaah!
Van Persie Barclays Player of the Month, Fabregas the PFA Fans Player of the Month. Finally some recognition, heavily deserved.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:00 am
Great to get some recognition at last.
Surely Eduardo needs a start? I was quite shocked to see the chances he wasted versus the spurs and it only be down to the fact that he needs more game time – specially in the league.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
@nycgunner, I don’t think Eduardo’s 100% yet, so Wenger’s being careful. He might get a start, but I’d be surprised.
All i want to know is who is the referee for tomorrow’s game. The lack of quality in the officiating ranks can cost good teams points. A Mike Jones or a Steve Bennet can cost you the game. A Mark Clattenburg can cost you a player out injured for the rest of the season. Whatever we do we have to win the game out right to overcome both our opponent and their evil helpers.
Did we really need all that space devoted to Mick McCarthy ‘claiming’ that his team was going to attack us. It is one thing for the manager to proclaim that and quite another for how his team expresses that on the field.
Vela is recovering from a groin injury.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Groin? It was his knee last week. This is shades of chest-infection-cum-stomach-bug.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
@ctpa, Steve (I’m just an officious, pompous prig) Bennett.
The thing you have to remember about the Daily Mail, the basic thing about the Mail, the thing that defines them, that one overwhelmingly, glaringly obvious facet that stands out whenever I read one of their articles, is that they are a bunch of cunts.
This is the newspaper which most went after the “divers” meaning “foreigners” in the EPL in the aftermath of the Celtic match.
Cunts.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
The Daily Mail (in case you didn’t see this in the Guardian) was singing the praises of Nazi Germany almost up to the outbreak of World War II and supported the British Union of Fascists.
haha sorry this is late (a bit hungover) but i just saw ancolloti said arsenal are chelseas biggest threat to the title. this is after red nose said mancs were chelseas biggest threat.
wenger should come out and say arsenal is arsenals biggest threat for the title (which is somewhat true) just for a nonsense circuitous argument to have some closure
November 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
@kidkle, “We shall meet the enemy and not only may he be ours, he may be us”-Walt Kelly (Pogo)
Interesting note from Young Guns is that Craig Eastmond will be on the bench at Wolves. We had to be pleasantly surprised when this kid showed up against Liverpool instead of Coquelin. One good game and now he’s on the bench, talk about a meteoric rise.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Unless Song gets injured – god forbid – he won’t get more than a couple of minutes, if that, but could this be a sign that Wenger is no longer so keen on Diaby in the holding role?
Merida won’t go to Atletico because they are heading down the ladder at the end of the season. The team that might snatch him is the L.A. Clippers, I mean, er, Manchester City.
A eulogy from the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/james-lawton-arsenals-brilliance-casts-a-shadow-on-anfield-road-1815580.html
November 7th, 2009 at 7:32 am
@Mia, Great link there, Mia. Cheers. It’s hard to take the criticism AW gets from the shortsighted supporters….
Trying to make it through the early games–Robbie Keane scores for Spurs but Sunderland are coming into the game nicely, with ex-Spurs Bent and Malbranque looking eager to pay back their former team. Meanwhile, Burnley get a penalty and a goal and an early lead vs ManCity at Middle Eastlands. It probably won’t last as City have their ex-gunners back this week. Seems that if you put Given and Jensen (the two widest keepers in English football?) next to each other in one goal they could stop everything without even moving.