Not a great sign, is it?

Our season kicks off in a few hours and we are already suffering from our first injury crisis. Put in mind our already thin roster, and this should come as a major cause for concern. Wenger did say last week that he only dip into the transfer market if we have another midfield injury …. and right on cue, Fabregas is out for the rest of the month!

So far we have Fabregas, Rosicky, Eduardo, Diaby, Toure, Senderos, and Nasri out. If fit, that would probably all our first team midfielders, and 1 of our strikers. Can it get any worse? Actually yes, With ManU almost signing Berbatov … Chelsea going for Robinho after getting Deco ….. Liverpool adding Keane …. our transfers so far have been 17 year old Ramsey and 21 year old Nasri. (spurs didn’t do too bad in their signings either)

Anyway back to the game at hand. FC Twente came in a very respectable 4th place last season in the Eredivisie, which meant they qualified for the Champions League playoff, where they breezed past 3rd place NAC Bredain with an 8-1 aggregate score, and then surprised many in defeating the heavy favourites Ajax, winning 2-1.

Those games were played at the end of last season, and since then there have been a few changes, most notably is Engelaar’s (the really tall player who dominated in the Dutch euro 08 team) move to Schalke. Their other playmaker, Karim El Ahmadi, went to Feyenoord.

This year in preparation, they played 9 friendly games, won 8 of them, and drew 1. The level of their competition in those friendlies isn’t really worrying for us. Actually the only decent competition they had was against Olympiacos (2-0), Ankaraspor (2-0), and Armenia Bielefeld (0-0), the rest was all lower division teams.

They recently hired ex-England manager McClaren as their new man, and it is yet to be seen if he will bring them any success this season. His record against Wenger isn’t the best, and what stands out are the 4-0, 4-0, 5-3, and 7-0 wins!

Their main threat will probably be their striker Kufo, who has a really great scoring record for them having scored 85 in 155 games, which is a very respectable 55% scoring rate! He was also the second top scorer in the Eridivisie last year with 22 goals, and was the scorer of both goals against Ajax in the 2-1 playoff win.

For Arsenal, most of the work will have to be done by our strikers in my opinion. With our second string midfield playing, our guys up front will have to try and make the most of the chances they get. I still don’t think it will be a tough game, and considering McClaren is in charge and his woeful history.

My predicted team selection -

Almunia

Sagna      Djourou      Gallas     Clichy

Eboue     Denilson     Ramsey     Walcott

VanPersie     Adebayor

I also think Vela and Bendtner will have a chance to show their stuff later during the game. I predict a 3-0 win.

Tonight we play Blackburn at home in an opportunity to extend our lead of the premiership after a great footballing weekend for us so far. Yesterday saw Chelsea held to a mind numbing 0-0 draw at home against Liverpool, and more importantly, Manchester United suffered their first loss at home this season. To make things worse for them, it was a local derby against Manchester City, and it was their first loss to them in Old Trafford in 34 years! This loss also broke their 13 match winning streak, which is their longest in 103 years!

Why am I mentioning this? Why should we care? Because it shows how good we have become. Even with a run of 13 winning games their best in a century, we are still leading the premiership! Arsene Wenger also proved himself a master in psychological warfare in matching Ferguson’s usual mind games when he said only 12 days ago about their one day trip to Saudi for a friendly:

“You can suffer in the next game as you travel, you come back, you need time to adjust and you switch off when you are away to a different country. So the focus could go a little bit and you can suffer.”

He was proven right with their recent performances and this result also must make Wenger’s words resonate somewhere in the back of Ferguson’s mind.

The day just got better later with the African Cup of Nations final ending in a very convincing win for Egypt, who proved to be the best team in the tournament by far. That Aboutrika guy is incredible, a midfielder with 81 goals in 128 games for Al-Ahly, and 10 in 33 for Egypt. He is a god to most Ahly fans and Egyptians fans overall, he was the main reason Al-Ahly went undefeated in 55 games in all competitions, a streak that lasted a year and half where they won everything possible, including the domestic league and cup and the African champions league. Aboutrika is a mix of Pires/Riquelme, not blessed with speed or strength, but incredible vision and reading of the game. His problem is his loyalty to his club, which is a shame since we don’t get to watch him against top competition continuously, and at 29, its hard seeing him go and start a career abroad.

Anyway I got sidetracked there, it was a good game with the only negative being Song’s injury which meant he had to limp off in the early minutes and was subbed. If he was playing, the game would have been different, I can guarantee that! He has been in excellent form for Cameroon like I said in my last post, and has actually been selected in the best African XI from the tournament. And just as a reminder, he is ONLY 20 years old!

Now to the game at hand tonight against Blackburn. We need to make up for the game we drew at Ewood Park earlier in the season, where Lehmann practically ended his career at Arsenal with a mistake from Dunn’s goal. It seems though that he will get a chance to redeem himself today with Almunia being sick. Our injury list is long and still hazy in terms of who might be fit just before the match. Alongside Almunia, at a worst case scenario, we could miss Flamini, Senderos, Rosicky, Djourou, Van Persie, Eboue, Toure, Song, Denilson, and Diaby. Hopefully from now till game time, we’ll have a few names back, hopefully Flamini being one of them.

Blackburn’s squad isn’t having any better luck for this game with their missing players. Players expected to be out through injury or suspension include Nelson, Samba, Dunn, and Pederson. Derbyshire might also miss the game with his girlfriend expecting to give birth anytime. Personally, I am glad that Samba and Pederson are out. Samba is a solid defenders who has proven his strength against us more than once, and Pederson can really whip in some great crosses. This still leaves them with Bentley, who is as good if not better in crossing than Pederson. On the receiving end of the crosses is the very dangerous Santa Cruz, who is very dangerous in the air, and is proving to be one of the buys of the season.

I expect alot of crosses and long shots from Blackburn, which means Gallas needs to be very alert, and it also means that if Toure is not available, Gilberto will more likely replace him instead of Hoyte, purely because of the height advantage. Hoyte has proven himself to be a very capable CB when he had to play in that position, and I personally think he plays better as a CB than he does as a RB, but its not a fair judgment since he only played there a couple of times.

A very interesting 3rd round FA Cup Saturday indeed. A good number of upsets today saw a few top flight teams crash out of the cup by lower division teams -

• Blackburn were humiliated in front of their home crowd with a 1 - 4 loss to Coventry, who are currently in 17th place in the Championship.
• Bolton also lost at home 0 - 1 against Sheffield United, who are 16th in the Championship.
• Everton took it one step further and lost 0 - 1 at home against Oldham, who are 13th in League One!
• Birmingham matched Everton in losing to a League One team but at least they lost away to 14th placed Huddersfield.

In other significant games, Wigan beat Sunderland 3-0, Boro came back to beat Bristol City 2-1, Chelsea scraped through with an own goal 1-0 win again QPR, while West Ham and Man City ended 0-0. Man United beat Aston Villa 2-0.

Spurs continue to let in goals at home with Robinson proving his England #1 status with a 2-2 draw against Reading. Two mistakes from Robinson allowing two goals from Stephen Hunt, while Berbatov continues his recent goal streak, which coincidentally came just before the transfer window opened up. His agent must’ve reminded him about the transfers and he must be desperate to leave as usual. He’s practically begging to be signed up by any team that “matches his ambition”, so I reckon that means any decent in any league as long as he leaves Spurs. Smart lad.

The draw means 1 more game for Spurs. The replay is scheduled for the 15th. But they also have a league game against Chelsea on the 14th. Our Carling Cup games against them are on the 9th and the 22nd. I hope they can reschedule so that both games be played between ours.

And now to our game against Burnley tomorrow.

Burnley are currently 12th in the Championship. They are winless in their last 6 games, with 4 of them being defeats. Their last win at home was in October, and they actually only won twice at home this season in 13 games.

Our team selection is limited for the game, either because of injuries or resting players. Seems that Adebayor, Hleb, and Van Persie are out injured, while Theo will face a fitness test to check his shoulder. Flamini is suspended. Fabregas, Gallas , Almunia, and Clichy will be rested.

Lehmann will start, along with Toure and Eboue who are set to leave after this game to the African Cup of Nations. I would assume Song could also feature after his solid performance in the Carling Cup against Blackburn and since he won’t be available for the coming Carling Cup ties. Bendtner’s ban ends which means he will probably start too.

Diarra, Diaby, and Denilson will all hope to be playing. My guess is that Denilson is assured as a starter. He has been a real professional compared to the other two and hasn’t complained one bit about not playing or whatever. He should be rewarded with a starting role. I would give Diaby the second available position since Diarra has been acting like an 8 year old demanding to start in the team less than 6 months since he signed.

Toure’s partner will be either Senderos or Djourou, who just came back from his loan spell at Birmingham. Both are capable of fulfilling this role with no problem.

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My guess for our formation is -

Just for fun, Beckham training at Arsenal -

Also, the transfer window is officially open, which can only mean one thing …. Fabregas to Madrid/Barcelona rumours. Yet again these rumours resurfaced, and his response is the best proof of why he is an Arsenal legend -

“Everybody already knows it makes me happy that a team like Real Madrid wants me. It is a great compliment,” said Fabregas.

“But now I am at Arsenal and I want to win the Premier League. Right now, I would die for Arsenal.”

The team finally returns home after two tough away games, and they really ended that mini-trip in style with the excellent and unexpected 4-1 win at Everton on Saturday after the disappointing 0-0 game at Portsmouth. I say disappointing because we ended our ’scoring in every game this season’ streak, not for the point we came back with. A point away at Portsmouth is not as bad as some fans think, and many fans actually went to panic mode all of a sudden!

Back to Tuesday’s game.

West Ham are the only other team to EVER win at the Emirates in all competitions!

They also come to this game in a good mood after doing us a favor and making a really good come back to defeat Manchester United 2-1. I watched most of that game, and they did very well, didn’t roll over and actually tried to create something from the game. They had more possession, more shots on goal, more shots on target, and twice as many corners as United. Both goals came from set pieces - the first a corner from which the less ugly Ferdinand brother scored from. The second from a free kick which former gunner Upson scored from. Both goals were headers too, which is an important stat that I’ll come back to later.

West Ham have the best defensive record in the league outside the top 4, with only 17 goals scored against. Fortunately for us, there are also missing many players. Dyer, Bellamy, Bowyer, Boa Morta, Zamora, Gabbidon, Etherington, Faubert, Collins, and Davenport make a loong injury list, which significantly limits their attacking strength. Add to that the fact that both Solano and Parker were substituted because of injuries in the ManU game, and they really do look limited.

Back to the set pieces issue mentioned above - Both Ferdinand and Upson are tall defenders who are good headers of the ball and will be a threat at set pieces. But wait, there’s more … Dean Ashton and Carlton Cole are both taller than the defenders and are also a dangerous aerial threat. So imagine this, in any corner or free kick situation, they will have Ashton (6′2″), Cole (6′3″), Upson (6′1″), and Ferdinand (6′0″) in the box against Gallas (5′11″) and Toure (6′0″). We should try our best not to concede silly fouls near the box. Solano and Noble are two of the better crossers of the ball in the league. I worry about crosses to either side of the goal, hopefully they wont capitalize on the height advantage against Sagna and Clichy.

From our side, Van Persie remains injured as well as Walcott. I can’t find any news of other injuries. Correct me if Im wrong, but I think Flamini’s 5th yellow and Bendtner’s red rules them out of the Burnley game, so they should be fine. Eduardo is making a case for more starts. I honestly expect him to turn things around the second half of the season. My guess is that we will go back to 4-4-2 since we are at home playing against a mid-table team.

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In the last 10 years, we’ve played West Ham at home 8 times (they were relegated for 2 seasons). We won 6 and lost 2 . We scored 17 goals and had 6 against. That’s an average of about 2.1 goals a game against West Ham at home, and 0.75 conceded.

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My guess for our formation is -

**EDIT** Since I wrote this preview a day early, there was little news on team selection. It turns out that Sagna and Gilberto are out, while Eboue, Hoyte and Walcott are back in. My guess is that Eboue will start after his rest, either in last season’s role at right back or replacing Hleb. Rosicky did well last game and scored and I think Wenger will give him a chance. Hoyte would slot in at right back if Eboue replaces a winger.

I hope Fabregas and Hleb will get their groove back, and I really hope we start 2008 like we ended 2007! Also, lets give Ljungberg the welcome he deserves ….

Happy New Year in advance!