So after a 100 mile an hour start to the season with some serious fixture turnover we have a 2 week period without any Arsenal related football or transfer window activity to keep us occupied. What would we do without the permanency of football in our lives!? I suppose we would probably watch cricket…I shudder to think.
The main thing that we always hope for in these international fixture periods is “please don’t get injured, please don’t get injured, please don’t get injured!” (Insert Danny Welbeck joke here). On the topic of Welbeck let’s hope his ankle injury is not too serious and that he’s fit to lead the line against City (or at least available for a tough decision for the manager to make). England play tonight and so far as our boys go The Ox and possibly Welbeck & Wilshere may be involved, but as I said before, let’s hope that firstly there are no injuries and secondly England win. With a win the Media will focus on the positives and hopefully stay out of the heads of certain players that are likely to be involved for us at the weekend.
Speaking of the game versus City, the above is definitely one decision that the manager will have to get right and manage in the right way to keep the squad feeling generally positive. 3 points will go a long way to doing that though, however they come. I’m really curious as to whether Welbeck will be thrust into the action straight away, I for one am hoping that he does play. I say this because though City have played against him they haven’t played against him through the middle and only predominantly on the left when playing at United. This might give us an element of surprise going forward and when there are a couple of players who are new to the team and trying to gel there can be some more inspired pieces of football witnessed because of that very reason. The predictability of the way a team plays can be planned for but with Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck thrown into the mix going forward there may be an element of surprise that teams aren’t used to seeing with Arsenal. It doesn’t tend to work in the defensive side of things so let’s hope we have a bit more familiarity with the back 6.
The one story that caught my eye this past week was that of certain media outlets headlining that ‘Szczesny does not feel sorry for Arsenal rival’. Articles also stated that Opspina was not his ‘friend’. The story was later rubbished by Szczesny himself via his Facebook page which comes back to how the media can really play a factor in the harmony of a dressing room. I wish there were more players correcting certain portions of the Media but they wouldn’t have time for training if that was the case. The one good thing that could come from this however, is that our keepers will be chomping at the bit for that number 1 jersey and if given the chance to prove themselves I think we are likely to see some great performances from them, at least until Christmas by which time we are likely to have seen both of them and a settled number 1 will be in place. That’s the point at which adding a signing in January (I know, I know…I promise this is the only transfer related stuff I’ll mention) could give us the resources to push on and win a trophy or two.
Here’s to an injury free week. Have a good one people.
atafc 