Did a bit of scouting on our opponents for Sunday last night. Well, I say ‘scouting’, but actually I just sat on the sofa, ate fried chicken, whilst Burnley beat Watford. What I learnt was:
- Burnley have a decent dead ball taker in Steven Defour
- They like a headed goal
Insightful stuff, I know, and it’s surely only a matter of time before I get the job on The Breakdown instead of Adrian Clarke.
Or, failing that, I’ll take the England job. Because if the requirements are set so low that you just a) don’t have to be dodgy, b) pander to the superstars whilst collecting your monthly massive salary and c) get to go to games every week for free, I reckon I could ‘do a job’.
I’d probably be found out quite quickly though, when they realise that the England manager basically just goes to Arsenal games home and away. But hey, my tenure might last longer than Big Sam’s at this rate, so I’d only be the second shortest serving manager in the national teams history.
I mean seriously, how stupid can you be? Actually, scratch that, because I know. If you’re a greedy person, you can be very stupid, which is what appears to have gotten the England manager in to this in the first place.
Anyway, let’s talk about Arsenal a bit more, shall we? Are we all still happy and swimming in the post-Chelski victory bliss? The glow is starting to wear off for me, as I’m looking at the game tomorrow and at the weekend now, but I’m still in fine mood I have to say. Alexis got man of the match on the official site, but it’s a mark of the team performance that I’m thinking hard about whether or not somebody else deserved it. You could have Koscielny for his absolute bossing of Costa, or Özil for another game in which he orchestrated everything. Iwobi was a joy to watch on the flank, but equally, Theo showed that he’s a different animal this season. My hope is that the team can bring that momentum in to tomorrow nights game against Basel. If we can, then we’d have a great chance of getting the win on the board and your also hope we’d be flying high ahead of playing Burnley on Sunday.
There’s one thing I always underestimate when it comes to football: the importance of momentum. Last season Leicester had it and it swept them over the line when they looked to be stuttering at times. It’s momentum that has seen us fall apart in February or March in recent seasons. Momentum can be massive in football and a win today and on Sunday afternoon will be massive, because we’ll be on a streak and more importantly, Arsène Wenger teams love a bit of swagger when they’re on a good run of form. Arsenal are a confidence side and when it’s with us, we can be breathtaking, so I’m hoping that we can continue our form tomorrow.
Hey, we’ve also had the confirmation from the King of Banter himself Carl Jenkinson, that he’s back in training again. I hope he gets some game time this season. Certainly ahead of Debuchy and if he can work his fitness up over the next month, he might even get some game time against Reading at the end of October. Here’s hoping.
And here’s hoping for a speedy return of Coquelin to the first team squad too, as the Frenchman looked quite down on Saturday when he trudged off, yet apparently the prognosis is good. Rumours were circulating in France that he would be out for just three weeks which, given the injury he had last season which kept him out for a few months, this is good news. I don’t subscribe to any kind of thinking that would have one of our players out for any length of time just to give another player a look in. Players should win their place in the team on form and ability. Arsène is not stupid and if a player really is proving themselves, he’ll play them, so that’s just what we have to see with our players. I think Xhaka will take his chance, but it would have been nicer to have seen that because we’ve been playing out of our skins, rather than through the misfortune of another player.
Still, I’ll look for are to seeing how we’ll line up tomorrow and hopefully the manager will have some more insight for us later today, as to how we’ll line up.
In the meantime we just have to wait to see what Le Boss says.
Back tomorrow with some more thoughts.
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