Arsenal AGM today, so there could be some interesting bits and pieces later about where Stan Kroenke sees the club going in the future. I say ‘could’ because these AGMs are generally tightly scripted affairs and Stan Kroenke isn’t exactly known for big statements.
The Verminator is talking big though, Vermaelen says I’m back and I’m ready to play against Chelsea. According to Vermaelen, once your fit that’s it. This match sharpness thing is all in the head and if you’re a professional footballer, you’re ready to go as soon as your body is ready. All good positive stuff, and though I wouldn’t want to do Robin Van Persie down in any way, it shows the sort of character you want as a team captain.
It also opens up the possibility that we will have a pretty strong back four for the Chelsea game, despite missing our first and second choice right-backs:
Kos _ Merte _ Verm _ Santos
Good job too, because Chelsea away ups the ante a bit. Yes we’ve been steadily putting our season back together, but we haven’t won away from home yet in this campaign. It’s been one draw (Newcastle) and three defeats (Man U, Blackburn & Spurs). Chelsea on the other hand have won all four of their home games. But Chelsea have had problems this week and I’m not not just talking about whether or not John Terry racially abused Anton Ferdinand.
They made a complete mess of the QPR game, conceding a penalty and getting two red cards. Last night they made heavy weather of Everton (admittedly with a weaker team) and didn’t win until the last four minutes of injury time. Picked up another red card too. It would be cliche territory to say there’s never been a better time to go to Stamford Bridge, because they still have a lot of class, but all is not well at Chelsea and the cliche of ‘everything to play for’ will do instead.
Since we put our run of wins together, we’ve hauled ourselves back up the table. Four weeks ago we were seventeenth, now we are seventh. But the closer to the top you get, the slower the progress as we are in amongst our real competitors. Were two points behind Liverpool and three behind Spurs. Our goal difference is five worse than both. This weekend, Liverpool are away to West Brom, Spurs host QPR on Sunday afternoon.
Even if the results all go our way, I can’t see us beating Chelsea by six! So the best we can hope for is sixth place if we win and Liverpool lose. It could happen, West Brom’s recent form is better than Liverpool’s, but I wouldn’t put money on it. So this weekend is about finding out how good our improved form really is, and not losing ground. There are three clubs just a point behind us, so plenty for the pessimists to get their teeth into!
But it’s only Thursday so let’s stick to optimism for now – that’s not a bad back four and Robin Van Persie is on fire. Bring it on!
Gulp!
