Arsenal v. West Ham – Match Preview

Everyone is looking forward to the mouth-watering quarter-final tie with Los Cules, but there is a small matter of the league to attend to and it continues this Saturday against the Hammers. Zola’s side are coming off a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of the Blues and will be looking to take a point from us. The stats show they have played us well over the years and have done well at the Emirates.

The hammers currently sit three points above the relegation zone and are in a fight to stay up this season. We were held to a 2-2 draw earlier in the season and must avoid dropping any points. It’s absolutely crucial we take all three points, since a win would catapult us to the top of the league albeit for 24 hours, but it’s a chance to put pressure on our rivals.

Fabregas and Rosicky have been passed fit and should feature tomorrow, but Gallas is still out with what is turning out to be a mysterious calf injury. It doesn’t look like he will be ready to face the blaugrana on march 31st and there is no set timetable on his return. Our options are limited at that position and I cringe at the thought of Sol Campbell facing the little magician from Argentina.

A win on Saturday would signal a 6th straight win for the Gunners, equaling the longest winning run set by the Blues this season. Bendtner’s goal against Hull was the 5th time we’ve scored in injury time in our last four games, I checked the official stats and the total number of times we’ve scored in injury time up to this point is 8, tied with the pensioners.

It is imperative that we don’t let the champions league tie distract from our objective of winning the league this year, let’s leave the analysis to the pundits and take each game as it comes.

The first leg is on the 31st of March with the second leg a week after on April 6th, away at camp nou. April is looking like it could be a pivotal month for Arsenal with the way the fixtures are lined up. It could make for a fixture congestion if Spurs qualify for the FA cup semi-final. The game would be moved to the 14th instead of the original date of the 10th, meaning we would only have 4 days of rest before our trip to Wigan, and should we qualify for the semi-final of the champions league, it would make it 3 days in between games.

We have to collect as many points as possible as the other team across town don’t have the luxury of playing in the competition any longer.

‘Til Tomorrow, Come On You Gunners!