Third versus Fourth - The Big Question

The Coach
By Boris Mellor
December 15 2006

No not will Tony Adams turn up, and if he does will he wave? But will Arsenal continue to produce only 1-1 or 3-0 scorelines? There must be some kind of record there.I am sure Motty would know the answer, my word, all those fry ups.

Mind you Adams will hate to lose to a team that he has criticised, mainly by subtle silence, of late. So it could be physical, there again we should have enough inside information on how to play Campbell. Come on Ade get a hat trick.

 

If the Gunners continue to maintain these score lines then we better hope it’s the 3-0 variant. Pompey are down on their luck with injuries, and its rumoured that Sol could be at centre forward. Santa came early at Arsenal and the Gunners have been distributing gifts to their visitors early, indeed from the start of the season. Only deserving teams get prezzies mind, not to top clubs or hated rivals, so Pompey will be grieved if they don’t get a free goal. As Pompey have won all seven games that they scored first in, conceding is not a good idea; so its time to play Scrooge.

 

However Arsenal’s defence has toughened up of late, only conceding one goal in three games, and thus earning seven points out of nine, and tough games they were too. I always said “it was the defence stupid”. We have scored the same number of goals as the Russians, but for 10 less points. If we had given away one, or two, less soft goals we would be up there.

 

Well it’s a six pointer as Portsmouth are our closest rival for third place; we need to open up a gap between ourselves and the chasing pack. So to drop any points would not be good, besides which the team needs to stop stuttering and get on a run.

 

A lot of key players were rested on Wednesday, and Gallas, Henry, and Rosicky are unlikely to return. Nonetheless Arsene can still pick from a very strong squad.

 

Hopefully Arsene will pick a stronger team than the one against Wigan, of course he will need to get the rotor out, but he will probably use the Carling Cup to rest players and bring back those recovered from injury. A strong line-up should be able to accomplish what will not be an easy job.

Arsenal possible squad Lehmann, Eboue, Djourou, Toure, Clichy, Walcott, Fabregas, Baptista, van Persie, Gilberto, Ljungberg, Adebayor, Almunia, Hleb, Hoyte, Flamini, Song, Senderos.

 

Don’t forget to enter your predictions on the table.