On Saturday we showed that we can compete at the top of the Premier League. Three away points taken from the third place team is a fantastic result.
Tomorrow we can take charge of our Champions League Group. A home win against Marseille will leave us four points ahead of them, and and at least that ahead of Olympiacos, with two games to play.
Can we keep our run of form going? Did the Chelsea game take too much out of anyone essential? Does anyone need an immediate break, given that we are at home to West Brom next weekend and then there is a two week gap to our next game?
Given the lighter load beyond this game I would hope we can put out a pretty solid team and go all out for the win that will put us on course to top the group. If there is another game in Robin Van Persie I would play him with the promise of a weekend off to come.
Two players who could well get rotated in are Rosicky and Arshavin.
The right-back choice will be interesting with both Jenkinson and Vermaelen fit. Will Jenkinson come back in against Marseille, or will Arsene Wenger use Vermaelen’s return to see what Koscielny can do out on the right?
Arsene Wenger hasn’t gone for much rotation so far this season, mainly settling for Rosicky/Ramsey and Arshavin:Gervinho.
So the team I’m expected is:
_______ Szczesny _______
Kos _ Merte _ Verm _ Santos
________ Song _________
___ Rosicky __ Arteta ___
Walcott __ RVP __ Arshavin
Though the right back choice could go either way. We didn’t see either Jenkinson or Vermaelen for long on Saturday so only Arsene Wenger knows how fit either really is. But Djourou clearly isn’t a great option there, despite his work-rate and commitment.
One thing that’s surprised me over the last few weeks is how transfer speculation has carried on since the window closed. This may be my memory playing up but I’m sure there’s more of it than last season.
I think that there are two reasons. First, everyone knows that because Arsenal sold players late, they have money in the bank. Second, the explosion in websites following football and Arsenal in particular means that there is great competition for readers.
Most web traffic comes via aggregator sites like arsenalnews.net where you choose what to read on the basis of just the headline – and a transfer headline gets you more visits, even when the window’s closed. It’s almost as if there’s s breed of fan whose mote interested in the transfer speculation than the football.
How long readers stay on a site when they discover the story is based on the idea that Arsenal want to buy back Kolo Toure is another matter. But no matter to the website owner, the visitor has been noted by Google and fed through to their advertising algorithm, serving up higher value ads next time.
Only the third most important reason for the speculation is the idea that Arsenal will spend all that cash in the January window. Now obviously there is room for more quality in the Arsenal squad, even after the result on Saturday.
But will the right players do deals in January. If I were a top player, which probably means I would already be playing Champions League football, I would want to wait and see where Arsenal end up. And I wouldn’t be sure of that in January.
Arsene Wenger may pull off a surprise purchase, but more likely is that what we have now is what we have to use. After Saturday, that doesn’t seem quite so worrying.
