London Calling.
Well d-day is here and by the time this is posted I will be just about to land in London hopefully. With matches falling by the wayside 1 after another yesterday Arsenal’s game is still on and
I am hopeful that it will remain on as I’m meeting some very good people before the game for a beer or maybe even 2. With a very high wind chill factor forecast for London tomorrow and the
Emirates a cold stadium anyway I managed to purchase a pair of longjohns and a thermal vest yesterday. Who says I’m getting old. Landing at 8 in the morning means I’ll have some time to kill
before I go to the Emirates and I suppose I’ll visit Oxford Street or maybe even Kensington market to see if I can pick up something nice. I’m checking into my hotel at 12 and it’s less than 10
minutes from the stadium which means I won’t have to worry about publc transport afterwards. At the moment I’m like a child I’m so giddy at the thought of meeting everyone and seeing Arsenal
for the first time in 10 months. Please, oh please let the game be on.
If we play I think we will see a team of
Almunia
Sagna, Gallas, The Verminator, Traore(please not Silvestre)
Denilson, Diaby, Rambo
Nasri, Arshavin, Eduardo.
I expect a typical game at the Emirates with Arsenal making all the running and Everton looking to hit us on the break or from a set piece. Eduardo’s form is returning and I think we will see
him get on the score sheet again along with 1 or 2 others in a 3-1 win for Arsenal. The biggest threat in my opinion is Saha if he is playing and I’d love to see him in an Arsenal shirt but
unfortunately he’s even more injury prone than most of our players. We should see Rosicky on the bench too as he’s available again after injury and the boss also said the verdict on Bendtner is
that he should be back in 10 days. I think we might see him start in the FA Cup game away to Stoke in 2 weeks time as he plays his way back to match fitness after 2 and a half months out. A
player we definitely won’t see today is Wilshere as he has a slight hamstring problem and misses out. As I always say for our games I think we need to play our own game and take our time and
the goals will come. The boss always says he expects us to turn the screw and score in the last 20 minutes of tight games as our opponents tire but hopefully tomorrow will be different as we
take advantage of Everton’s suspect defence and punish them early on.
Before I go any further I should mention the atrocious attack on the Togo national team in Angola in which their coach driver was killed, 2 players injured and 6 others injured too. I have
stated my dislike for he who shall remain nameless here before but I am glad to say that Adebayor is unhurt but very shaken after the attack. By right the ACN should be called off but the money
involved is too important and I’m sure it will go on although I very much doubt if Togo will play any part in it.
We also saw Bolton get their man yesterday as Coyle became their manager and let’s hope new manager syndrome doesn’t come into play next Sunday when we travel up there. With Vieira joining Man
City it was a sad day for us Gooners and I hope he doesn’t play for them against us at the Emirates in April but if he does he will get a great reception. Personally I think he’s past his best
and he will find it difficult to get into their team at all.
The boss had an awful lot to say yesterday and I don’t have the time to report it all but check out Arsenal.com and you’ll find it all. He spoke about transfer targets, Vieira, Campbell,
Chamakh, Gignac, Cole, Moses, Cesc, snow, postponements and much much more. I’ll try my best to blog as early as possible after the game(if it’s on) on Sunday and I’ll probably get to the
airport early to avoid the forecasted blizzards and pay a fortune to do it from there. Finally for today thanks to everyone who made yesterday’s blog a record for me in terms of hits and
comments and there were so many comments that I lost track of them and gave up trying to answer them all as I had to go to bed early for today. I can assure you that it will never happen again
as every comment that needs an answer will be answered.
Here’s what happened when we played away to Everton in our 1st league game this season.
And to finish today’s title track from The Clash which needs no explanation.
See You Tomorrow.
Update: I didn’t make it to the game as my flight got cancelled after sitting on the plane for 3 and a half hours. I managed to get myself on a later flight that meant I would have got there at
half time but that got cancelled too. Sky News said the airport was closed due to heavy snow but that’s a joke. There was a light covering of snow that stopped falling by 9 but they refused to
clear the runway because more snow was forecast. I left the airport at 12.15 and no more snow had fallen so if they had cleared the runway when it stopped earlier I would now be in 1 of the
pubs around the stadium. The reason why we didn’t fly out before the snow was we were waiting for the only deicer in the airport to be fixed as we had to be deiced. From what I heard
though it wasn’t broken but the operator didn’t show up for work. To say I’m gutted is an understatement. Maybe when Ladyarse and Garantia didn’t make it the writing was on the wall.