Arsenal – West Ham, the preview « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Walter Broeckx

Ok here I sit.

Tony has been snowed in I think and I even don’t know if he will be able to free himself to get to the game.

Billy the Dog McGraw has disapeared when the tried to reach the allotment of Dennis Bergkamp so he also is not here.  Which leaves me the ref-previewer, ref-reviewer, Arsenal supporter with the task of writing a preview for this game.

Let us start with what I am certain of. Some facts.

According to some the ref plays no part so that is already out of the way.

The grass will be greener on the other side of the hill is also a fact.

There will be 22 players on the pitch at kick off unless one of them is named Puncheon.

There will be two managers, one for each team. Living on different planets so we should be careful tonight in case they  would collide at one point. That would be a happy ending for some who don’t see anything good at Arsenal any more as it would be the end of the world as predicted and it will be all Arsène’s fault.

The game will start when the ref blows his whistle and stop when he also does it (blowing his whistle I mean)  but at the end of the game.  Which should be some 90 minutes later. Or 100 minutes. Depending on lost time.  If you would find the lost time, please bring it back to the office of lost items.

Let me now start with the bad news: We are having a few injuries it seems. This means no Arteta (big loss), no Coquelin (smaller loss but in the light of the absence of the first one  a bigger loss).  Rumour has it that Diaby is injured. Or rested. Or both.

The good news is that we should habe The Ox and Podolski back in the squad today as they recovered from their illness that prevented them playing at Chelsea. And also Rosicky is back in full training so maybe he could be sitting on the fog bank. Frimpong is also training with the group so maybe he could come in as a defensive midfielder. Which should be his natural position if I remember correct as he has been out, away, out for a while.

So who will play for us? And where?

I think we will see Szczesny hanging around in our penalty area for most of the time.

If I would be Wenger I then would put out this team on the field. Mind you I’m not Wenger and probably will make a fool of myself but hey as you don’t want me to talk about the ref I have to write about something else.

Sagna – Mertesacker – Koscielny – Gibbs

No Vermaelen you say? Wait a minute.

Let us take a look at the midfield

Vermaelen

Ramsey             Wilshere           Cazorla

And that leaves us in attack with

Theo             Podolski (if fully fit!)

The more intelligent will have discovered by now that this looks like a 4-4-2 but in fact I think both Wilshere and Cazorla should play as half midfield and half attacker. So in fact this is more a 4 – 2+1 – 2+1 formation. Just checking if it ads up to 10 outfield players. It does. Nice work Walter. I could be even a manager. For when I have enough of refereeing. Does it pay well?

Back on the fog bank where the reserves will be placed: Giroud, Arshavin, Rosicky, Frimpong, Mannone (always handy to have a reserve keeper on the fog bank) and give that boy Gnabry another chance over there.

West Ham have a few injured and missing people like Carroll who since his 35M move didn’t have much fun as before and we will only see Chamakh trying to help former players safe in to the ground as he cannot play against Arsenal as he is still an Arsenal player but loaned to them.

Diame has been rolling on everyone’s lips these days and seems to be the best player ever on a football pitch according to some.  Reports say that he is threatening to go to the court if West Ham don’t play the game according to the rules.  But that could be paper talk.

So this is it. This is probably the  worst ever game preview written on Untold or any other website ever. Someone had to do it.It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it as they say.

Over to you now who know much more about those things but who didn’t send in an article that was  better so I had to stick with this.

I could bore you with some words about the ref but I already did that to the annoyance of some. Sure they must be happy now.

If you go to the Emirates have safe journey and most of all: JUST SUPPORT THE TEAM FROM THE FIRST TILL THE LAST MINUTE!

Will you? Thank you!