Sunday, April 02, 2006

Waiting on injuries and helping Chelsea.

I appreciate the fans more than all the oil and gas of Russia
Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov

Thought I'd start the day with a comedy quote.

As for us, it seems like it will be a slow news day, with the talk there is inevitably focused on Eboue and Fab's injuries. Unfortunately, we're probably not going to know for definite about these injuries until Wednesday itself. If they're 40/60, 50/50 then they're not going to have healed by now. Eboue's seems more serious than I had hoped. But both ran off when they were substituted though, so i'm still hopeful overall. If the odds are 50/50 then surely one of them must be back. I forget how the laws of probability work. Some people have said that Arsene shouldn't have risked the two before the Juve game. I personally think, given how important all our remaining games are, Arsene has to put our strongest possible team out for every game until the end of the season. It's now a sprint finish, and are players are capable of doing it. I think we can get through the Juve game without Fab and Eb, although it will now be considerably more edge-of-seat than before, and hopefuly they'll both be back when we head up north on Sunday.

If eboue is out injured, here's the back line I'd consider playing: Kolo(rb), djourou, Phil, Flam. Sorry Sol. I'll speculate further tomorrow, and fully on Wednesday, as more news about the injuries come in.

Everton have told us to forget about Yobo. I don't think Arsene was really interested in him, but he might have been some nice cover. I can't see him starting before phil, kolo or even Djourou though. If he was coming in to replace anyone, it'd be Sol. I think, this summer, we may see another CB, probably unknown, young and French, who will be the true, long-term squad replacement for Sol. I think Arsene may have lost faith in him after his shenanigans this season.
Wenger now apparently wants to help Chelsea win the league. The horrors of being a team in 5th place eh? Also we are the fourth most valuable team in the world. Not bad.
Hopefully more news will congregate by tomorrow.
Til then, Adieu.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do we need another Arsenal blog?

Goonerboy said...

If you don't like it, don't read it.

Anonymous said...

i dont think moving kolo out of position is a good idea. he's our best defender and we need him in the middle. best to have djouro at right back like on saturday.

Goonerboy said...

Yeah. It might be better to stay solid in the middle, and have Kolo help out whoevers playing on the right.

Anonymous said...

Could someone clarify the yellow-card situation in the Champions League, i.e. does an amnesty kick in at any point soon or do we have to go on biting our nails about Reyes and Cesc, both of whom I think are a card away from suspension?

Goonerboy said...

Does anyone else find this article slightly terrifying:

http://football.guardian.co.uk/championsleague200506/story/0,,1745618,00.html?gusrc=rss

Sorry, don't know how to do html links.

Anonymous said...

if they're both 50/50 then there's a 75% chance of having AT LEAST one back.

:-)

Anonymous said...

both fab and eboue are going to turin so they passed fit

Anonymous said...

I'd guess Cesc's kicked foot will be OK to play on - i.e. he is not likely to exacerbate the injury much - but Eboue's groin strain is more of a problem - playing before the muscles are completly repaired could put him out of action for weeks. Yesterday, long before the news emerged here, the Italian papers were saying pretty much that - i.e. that Cesc was almost certain to play whereas Eboue's injury would need a couple of weeks. Pity it's not the other way round. We could manage - just - without Cesc for this game.

It really pisses me off the way so many of the papers are milking the situation for the titilating chauvenist angle: will Wenger snub our fine English player, will Sol's World Cup prospects thus be destroyed? I desperately hope Wenger sticks to his guns - sorry for pun - and doesn't even contemplate moving Kolo to right back. A two-goal lead could be reversed in ten minutes if he totally screws up the defence.

Pessimism setting in. I listened to talksport for ten minutes last night and was depressed to hear them predict we would win - throughout this season every one of their pre-Champions League game predictions have been wrong!