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Victory Through Harmony
By Phil Gregory – our man with a computer
It wasn’t long ago that we last played Wigan, dropping two points in disappointing fashion. That day was even more disappointing if thanks to a delay on your Virgin trains you arrived sufficiently late to not even get in the ground, but them’s the breaks. Anyhow, it was a controversial day, with heavy rotation, likely required due to the insane fixture list, meaning we dropped two points that day. Today however, we play on our patch, with a little more rest too. Hopefully, it won’t end 2-2 eh?
Looking at the league table, it’s all getting very tight at the top and we’ve only got a goal difference worse than United’s by one, though a likely five point deficit in all truth. While the odds of the league coming down to goal difference is slim, it is certainly something that I’d like to be on our side. Given United have a game in hand, it is probably fair to assume once we’ve all played an equal number of games, they’ll be a few ahead of us, goal difference wise. However if we expect to make up the points on them over the remaining games, we’ll almost certainly get a better GD by doing so, which may just come in useful.
Overall for the league, we haven’t got many games against fellow contenders left, and what we do have is at home. We’ve got more home games than away games left to play, so we’re certainly in with a chance. Could United stumble if they lose their unbeaten record, with confidence sucked out of them? They don’t strike me as that sort of team so I wouldn’t bank on them doing a Chelsea. What is true however is they are fairly poor away. Personally, I think it may come down to us having to beat them at the Emirates, both for the league and ending their hopes of emulating the Invincibles. The real fairytale would be Blackpool ending it at Bloomfield Road however. Am I dreaming? United are dodgy away…
The injury situation only gives us a couple of issues. Denilson is a doubt, having not recovered as well as expected from his knock (Chamakh, who also suffered a minor knock is fine) while Diaby and Squillaci are expected to be out for around another week. Fabianksi is still out with a shoulder inflammation. With that sort of injury, it is simply a matter of waiting until the inflammation goes down, hence why it can be a bit of guesswork on how long it takes (I’m not making this up, I have a similar issue and spoke to an ex-Premier League physio about it, he explained the ins and outs while charging £45 to wave my arm around. Nice bloke however).
Taking that onboard, I’m going for the following:
Szcznesy
Sagna Djourou Koscielny Clichy
Song Wilshere
Cesc
Theo Van Persie Nasri
After a tireless performance in midweek, I expected Bendtner to get some decent gametime off the bench too. When you look at our bench, you realise it’s getting competitive to even get sub appearances now: there are some big players that are routinely left with their Arsenal bobhats on for ninety minutes.
Anyhow, Szcznesy is the last man standing in regards to keepers and we have a first choice back four out too (well, of those who are fit). There may be a little bit of rotation, but with Clichy rested, it is only feasibly going to be Sagna, who has just had a three game breather, so it doesn’t seem needed to be honest.
Wilshere will surely also come back into the side next to Song, who certainly is a man who deserves a rest. Fabregas returns to the midfield, while Theo goes back to his traditional wide-right berth. Nasri takes the opposite flank, while Van Persie comes back into the centre.
For me, that is certainly a line-up strong enough to win the game comfortably. A good solid win against Wigan would be fantastic, and with that team I can certainly see it happening. I’m going to go for a 3-0 to the Arsenal , a fairly straightforward match with a strong side out. Clean sheets never go amiss either, though the defence is certainly looking better for a bit of familiarity at centreback.
I unfortunately won’t be keeping up with the game as live, as I’m making my refereeing debut tomorrow. I didn’t anticipate doing it in a foreign language, reffing a game in which I had friends playing and classmates in the crowd but they pay me my euros, so I don’t complain. Hopefully Walter will catch a stream of it and score me higher than Mike Dean…!
Snooping around Wigan. (This might be a health hazard)
Bogus Cheese considers the fromage du Perruque d’Ann
The new George Allison season on the Arsenal History site.