Eight Games Left for Arsenal To Win the Premier League

The weekend is over and it's back to the harsh reality of work for me this morning. It's going to be a strange week as I have to work 12 hours a day for the next two days but then I have Wednesday off as it's a national holiday here in Ireland. However opportunities to "drown the shamrock" on Paddy's Day will be limited as it's back to work on Thursday morning.

The boss had a lot to say after our victory at Hull at the weekend and I'll do my best to summarise it here. First of all he said that it was a very big win after our difficult midweek game and we know what is at stake when we go to places like Hull or Stoke.

We managed to win both of those games in injury time and that shows that we keep on fighting until the very end. He said we have desire and spirit and we never give up which is great for such a young team. 

He said that winning with late goals shows our spirit but that it isn't very good for his heart. He said that we are in the fight for the league title with eight games to go and there is no reason why we should not believe that we can win it. There are still some tough games to go with the trips to Birmingham, the Spuds, Wigan, and Blackburn ahead of us.

Birmingham have not lost at home since September, The Spuds are our closest rivals and pushing for fourth place, Wigan have won at home to Chelsea and Liverpool already this season and Blackburn have only two home defeats this season. A case can be made for all of those games being very difficult but we will have to win them all if we are going to win the league.

At home we have to play West Ham, Wolves, Manchester City, and Fulham and I am confident of winning three of those games but the City game won't be easy. They are pushing for fourth place and have some very good players but I think their defence is poor and we can get that win. While we are playing all these games we have to contend with a Champions league quarter final and that's going to be another drain on the players.

The boss said that they were tired on Saturday and with so many players out injured it means too many players have to play in every game. I thought Nasri looked a shadow of the player we saw against Porto and despite his few weeks off with his "injury" Arshavin still looks jaded to me.

The boss said that Campbell can cope with one game a week but three games  week is too much for him. I thought he struggled on Saturday and I'm sure the break will be much appreciated by him. The other option was to have played Silvestre on Saturday but the boss would seem to share the views of the majority of fans when it comes to him.

The good news on the injury front is that Cesc and Rosicky both have a good chance to be fit for next Saturday's evening kick off at home to West Ham. We will of course have Song back from suspension and he was sorely missed at times on Saturday.

Gallas, however, will not be fit to play but I hope we can get him back for the Champions league quarter finals and the last six games in the league. I know RVP is due back in April but to be honest by the time he has regained any sort of match fitness the season will be more or less over as there are only eight weeks to go in the league.

The boss spoke about Boateng's red card on Saturday and said that he doesn't think the player could complain about being sent off.

He was being very generous to Boateng and he could have said a lot more about a player who poked one of his players in the eye and caught another one knee high with his studs with the ball a long way away. After not highlighting those incidents on MOTD on Saturday night they were at least pointed out on MOTD2 last night. 

When asked about Hull's penalty the boss pointed out that it was offside first of all but also that the Dutch man with the long name made the most of it by going straight at Campbell while not in control of the ball. He said that any connection was unintentional and it should not have been a penalty.

I said yesterday that bad decisions tend to even out over a season and if we lost a goal to an offside decision on Saturday we at least got one in our favour last Tuesday night. The penalty we conceded though should have been balanced out by one in our favour in the second half when Clichy was taken down in their box but as per usual this season we got sweet FA for it.

In other news our ladies lost the home leg of their Champions league quarter final 2-0 to reigning champions Duisburg yesterday and they went out 4-1 on aggregate. They will have to concentrate their efforts on the domestic trophies for the rest of the season but they did very well to get so far after losing their best players to the professional game in the States last summer.

The under 18s managed a 4-0 win at home to MK Dons on Saturday with Afobe getting two goals and Aneke and Rees getting the others. They remain 11 points clear at the top of their league with only seven games left to play.

According to some reports we are monitoring the progress and form of Lazio goalkeeper Fernando Muslera and if he's any good I wouldn't be surprised if we bought him or any other good goalkeeper in the summer as it is our weakest position without a shadow of a doubt. We don't have a keeper capable of playing at the highest level in the game unless young Szczesny makes the grade but at 19 he's very young to be our first choice. 

With no midweek game things will get a little bit boring during the week from an Arsenal perspective but at least the players will get a well deserved chance to recover and the extra players coming back for next weekend will give the boss what he really needs at the moment—options.

With the Spuds not playing their FA cup quarter final replay against Fulham until Wednesday week we won't know if our proposed trip to WHL on April 10 will go ahead or not until that game is decided as April 10 is FA Cup semi final day. I don't want Arsenal to have to play away to the Spuds midweek in the last week of the season as three games in the final eight days of the season could prove to be very difficult. 

Finally for today it was great to see Arshavin score our 100th goal of the season in all competitions on Saturday and even better  to see Bendtner add the 101stgoal to win the game in injury time. Watching the muppets on Sky after the "Manure" game yesterday I was particularly annoyed to hear them tell us how great "Manure" were to have scored 100 goals already this season but they never made any mention of our goal tally.

It's typical of them as they continue their bias towards "Manure" which can be seen in how often we are live oi their Sunday  games. I'm sick of Arsenal kicking off at 5.30 on Saturday evenings but we have it again next Saturday.

I had intended to put my post match review up yesterday but I only managed it this morning due to ongoing problems with my ISP. I'm hoping to have it sorted before next weekend because at the moment I can't access BleacherReport from my home and I have to post my articles from work which isn't ideal. Finally for today it's great to see the "tango" man got the sack fom Hull this morning.

Here's JET's goal for Doncaster at the weekend. It isn't brilliant quality but it's better than nothing.

See you tomorrow.