Arsenal Team Against Newcastle
As the season goes on, the suspensions, knocks and form make the player choices more obvious. By now Arsene Wenger probably has a very settled view about his strongest team and the dilemmas will be about who needs a break.
Injury and form have handed a big opportunity to Wojciech Szczesny. He has the rest of the season to stake his claim to be undisputed number one. He isn’t the finished article yet but the signs are good. I expect he will get to play every game except for the Orient cup tie.
Wenger says Walcott is fit but Song will miss this weekend, so I guess the line-up will be:
__________ Szczesny ___________
Sagna _ Djourou _ Koscielny _ Clichy
______ Diaby _ Wilshere ______
__________ Fabregas ___________
Walcott ___ Van Persie ___ Arshavin
Moyes & Fabregas
Clearly the game on Tuesday night was an emotional affair for all involved. Everton need every point they can get, so ending up with nothing after being a goal up really exposed how well David Moyes can take the pressure – badly.
I’m sure that Fabregas was pretty pumped up too after Arsenal went behind on a very dubious on-side decision. But if he had behaved as badly as Moyes claims, he would have been charged by the FA. Unless of course the officials were so dreading going in to see the replay of the Saha goal that they were too comatose to notice!
Arsene Wenger doesn’t often brand his fellow managers as liars so I think that the whole story is about what is going on in David Moyes’ head.
Gary Neville
Talking of Arsene Wenger’s generally charming attitude, he was charitable enough to join in with the praise for the retiring Gary Neville. He even agreed with the suggestion that Neville had been England’s best right-back. Personally I think he was a ruthless thug who made up for his lack of technique with consistency and a good enough reading of the game to avoid getting stuck out of position.
Obviously as a Gooner I’m biased but describing him as England’s best right-back for decade just means that England hasn’t had a decent right-back for a decade.
