Afternoon all!
After what seems like an interminable wait, it's finally time for the first of our true tests. United at Old Trafford should be a real test to gauge our potential for an assault on the title this season. Whilst it certainly is not a title deciding match, a win tonight would see us for points clear of United and three points clear of City. The most important aspect of a win tonight would, as Arsene put it, give us a clear edge in the psychological department over our rivals. Chelsea continued their stutter with a draw at Sp*rs, Drogba missing a penalty in injury time seems to sum up their current predicament well. City, for all their cash and bluster, are having more trouble internally than a drunken Scouser after nine pints and dodgy kebab. Also combined with the Tevez's transfer demand, it's going to be hard for them to continue their push. United are our main rivals, despite their undefeated run this season they've given up too many draws and hopefully a win against them would see their heads drop and open up a gap for us to exploit.
Giggs has been warning the rest of the Manure squad about Nasri, marking him out as the main dangerman in the absence of Fabregas.
"Nasri has probably been one of the best players in the Premier League this season... Arsenal deserve a lot of credit for the way they have coped with losing a quality player like Fabregas and still carried on winning."
Nice of the Welshman to articulate to the rest of his squad his feelings. Though probably if he wants Rio to hear him he'd have done better telling him on Twitter. Or better yet sticking a sign up in the Manure dressing room written in crayons.
Our attacks are evenly matched I'd say. We out-edge them in the midfield department whilst in all honesty their defence has the edge on ours. If we want to win tonight it is critical that our midfield stifles theirs and limits the service to their forwards.
On a worrying note, the Sun is reporting that we may have to turn to Wojciech Szczesny to step up in goal as Fabianski is suffering from a leg injury (though for someone who's main failure is his positioning, maybe a leg injury isn't the worst thing in the world for Fabianski as it'll force him to stay still in set pieces...). Szczesny was complaining earlier this season about the lack of opportunities he's getting. If he does have to fill in for Fabianski, he could really make a name for himself. Let's hope it's for the right reasons!
Lastly on tonight's match fecalmatter.com, sorry that should have read goal.com but I get the two confused, are saying Fergie's going to play Rooney as a lone striker tonight. In a game which should come down to a shootout of the two sets of forwards, if Fergie does go down this route and play Anderson instead of Berbatov none shall be happier than I! A Brazilian with a shots-on-target rating of a 5 year old versus the Bulgarian who may not score but draws defenders away from Rooney?? Do me a favour please. Fergie's surely not that senile yet... ("Yes I am! and don't call me Shirley," comes the Scottish accented, whiskey edged voice from the United dressing room....)
I'll skip over the continued dross of "tonight is the night we show we come of age" nonsense coming from Arsene and pundits left, right and centre. We fans know it, the squad knows it. To be honest it's become like that bloody Christmas song by Noddy Holder, WE KNOW IT'S CHRISTMAS/CRUNCH TIME! Let's just get on with it...
On a side point, Danny Collins at Stoke has said that they're going to be targeting us with more rough-handed antics when we play them this coming weekend. After what happened to Ramsey and considering our team is showing a lot more steel this season, I personally would love it if Song goes in for a tackle on Collins or Shawcross and break break fibula/tibula/both. I'm not usually one to celebrate bad injuries but hearing Tony Pulis complain about us roughing them up would be a perfect bit of Christmas irony cake.
Hopefully it would discourage other teams from playing on the old 'rough-up the Arsenal youngsters' card. And just to let you know, if Tony Adams just wants to make a cameo and achieves the same result with a piece of 2x4 before disappearing into the mist with Pulis chasing him, then that's me who's gotten their Christmas wish from Santa...
On the transfer/journalist guessing game news, we're being linked with M'Vila from Rennes again. I swear journo's just drag this story out every time they feel like they're lacking a few column inches.
Also we're now one of a number of clubs being linked to out-of-favour rightback Davide Santon from Inter. Apparently his agent has come out saying that Santon is interested in a move to London and we all know that agents never lie... [spits on ground] Personally I think FIFA should institute a rule whereby agents have their tongues removed and if they want to spread rumours they have to do it through the medium of interpretive dance. It might not solve the constant bullshit problem but at least we'd have a laugh at them prancing about in leotards.
"It's a tree? No? Ermm... A bush? yes a bush? No... a bush and a rabbit? a rabbit eating lettuce?... Ohhhh Tevez wants a transfer." See, much more fun!
Well let's leave it there for now. tomorrow will be a dissection of the match so let's wait and see if we can start Christmas early. If we do win, I may even play Noddy's song for sheer comic value....
The Afterthought.
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