For Arsenal FC, It's Do or Die Tomorrow

Friday, 26 February 10

After what seems like an eternity we are only one day away from our trip to Stoke and Arsenal's next date with their Premier league destiny. When we lost to the two teams above us we were written off and with 13 games to go were were eight points behind the leaders Chelsea and they had a game in hand, too.

However, they managed to draw at Hull and lose at Everton and we now find ourselves six points behind them with that extra game for them gone. Their away form has been very poor and in my opinion they were lucky to win at Wolves last Saturday.

That gives us a lot of hope for those remaining 11 games and every time Chelsea go away from home I'll be hoping for them to drop some points. Added to that they have their first choice goalkeeper and left back both injured and their captain is beginning to look a bit of a liability when he is playing.

The other half of the equation is Manure of course and we saw last week against Everton exactly how good thy are when Shrek is not at his best or starved of supply. They did bounce back on Tuesday night with Shrek scoring two goals in the 3-0 defeat of West Ham and Valencia making both of those goals.

It's no coincidence that Shrek is scoring a lot more goals this season with the diver gone to Madrid as he is getting a lot more chances with Manure becoming more of a team than a one man show.

If Shrek has a drop in form or gets injured Manure will fall off the pace in the league very quickly but even though the majority of their fans that I know think they have a poor team they are still hanging in there and putting the pressure on Chelsea. 

I honestly think that Arsenal don't have to look over their shoulders at the teams fighting for fourth place because I don't think any of them are good enough to put pressure on us for third place unless we completely collapse. I've said it before and I'll say it again I think we only need five or maybe six wins at the most from our last 11 games to guarantee third place in the league.

The other competition we are still involved in is the Champions league of course and if we can overcome our 2-1 first leg deficit to Porto after the away leg we will find it very difficult in the quarter finals. The teams most likely to make the last eight besides Arsenal are Manure, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bordeaux, Sevilla, and Fiorentina in my opinion and I can only hope that we don't draw any of the first three of those teams because it would make further progress very difficult.

I'm not saying we can't beat them but with the injuries we seem to have every week we will find it hard to put out a strong enough team to do that.

Ahead of the trip to Stoke the boss told us yesterday that there is a possibility of Eduardo being available as he returns to full training today. However it seems that Gallas, Diaby and Arshavin will all miss out yet again as they are still injured. That should see the return of Campbell for Gallas, Nasri continuing on the left for Arshavin and hopefully Ramsey for Diaby yet again.

I'm sure the boss will be tempted to play Denilson instead of Diaby but I hope he doesn't as his performance in the FA Cup defeat at Stoke is still fresh in my memory.

The boss had an awful lot to say about left backs yesterday as he spoke about Clichy, Gibbs and Wayne Bridge. He said that Clichy is coming back to his best after his lengthy injury lay off and in our last two league games he had strong performances and was more convincing. He also said that Gibbs could be back before the end of the season but it's difficult to tell at the moment because he is still in a cast.

There is talk of Gibbs receiving a call up to England's World Cup squad after Bridge made himself unavailable yesterday but I can't see it happening myself.

If he hadn't got injured in November when Clichy was already injured he probably would have made the left back position his own and be a dead cert for a place in that England World Cup squad, but as it is, I don't think he will play again this season. England can't risk him at the World Cup with their first choice Mr Tweedy having broken his ankle last week and being close to not making the trip either. 

When asked about Wayne Bridge's withdrawal from any potential selection in England's World Cup squad the boss said he didn't know if the player was able to make himself unavailable for selection. I had said in the past that Ireland should take up Stephen Ireland's refusal to play for his country with FIFA or UEFA as I can remember France doing it with Makalele and forcing him to play for them.

As far as I know if a player won't play for his country he can be banned from playing for his club although I don't think England will choose that option with Bridge as it's a very delicate matter. The final bit of left back news today is that our own "top gun" Thomas Cruise has done what at least 20 other players have done this season by signing a new contract extension.

Speaking about tomorrow's game the boss said that Stoke have scored 15 goals from set pieces this season and 14 of those are at home. He said that a lot of them come from throw ins and if you look at the pitch tomorrow you will see how narrow it is compared to our pitch. With the ball boys all providing towels for former javelin thrower Delap to dry the ball it is a very potent weapon and hopefully our defence can be strong enough to stand up to them.

The boss says that the game is not about revenge for our FA Cup defeat last month as Stoke were the best team on the day and deserved to win. He said he has watched how Stoke play and that they mix it about a bit now and play a lot more football than they did last season.

I'm not sure if that's true but maybe he's trying to lull them into a false sense of security by being very nice to and about them. He did finish by saying we have a good opportunity to prove we can be better than them on Saturday.

The boss didn't quite rubbish the Dutch national team manager's claim that RVP would be back in early April but he did say that he thought it was a bit optimistic. There are rumours that JET will be going out on loan to Doncaster until the end of the season and I hope the experience will stand to him. He has already been on loan in the championship this season with Blackpool and that went quite well.

That's it for today but I'll be back tomorrow to preview the Stoke game and give my prediction too.

Here's a little bit of what Ramsey can do.

See You Tomorrow.