Arsenal Players Have a Chance To Redeem Themselves Against Partizan Tonight

With a tough trip to Serbia tonight to play Partizan Belgrade in the second game of our Champions league group the players have a chance to go some way towards making amends for Saturday afternoon's debacle against West Brom. Reflecting on Saturday's game the only player to emerge with any real credit was Samir Nasri after he scored two goals and hit the bar as well although I would also exclude Jack Wilshere and Tomas Rosicky from the criticism as they weren't on the pitch in the first hour when Arsenal's performance could best be described as abject.

With Cesc Fabregas not on the pitch due to injury the captain's armband was worn by Manuel Almunia and the only reason I can see why he gets the armband is seniority. For me a captain's role is to encourage the other players and make himself heard at all times. He has to tell players when they're not doing their job and equally congratulate them when they are doing the right things. How can a man who is devoid of confidence in himself and his own game inspire it in the players around him and that's exactly the situation we are faced with when Almunia is our captain.

Usually goalkeepers are a little eccentric and very loud and bawl the other players out of it at every opportunity but you rarely see Almunia say anything to the other players and you certainly never hear him screaming at them above all the other noise as you do with the best keepers and captains. The latest news on Almunia is that he injured himself giving away the penalty on Saturday and he won't play tonight which more than likely means that Rosicky will wear the captain's armband.

I know that Almunia had problems in his personal life last season and when he was out injured nobody actually thought that he was injured but we thought that the boss "rested" him for his own good instead. For me a keeper needs confidence in his own ability and he simply doesn't have that confidence so his absence tonight might be a good thing.

Of course his deputy will be Lukasz Fabianski and he hasn't exactly covered himself in glory when he has got his chances in the past. I just wonder how long Almunia will be out with his injury and if Fabianski makes a mess of things during that time if the boss will opt for either Wojciech Szczesny or Vitto Mannone. It could be the back door route for either of them but if it leads to Arsenal having a better keeper I don't care what route they take to get there.

The squad that was announced yesterday didn't include Abu Diaby and no mention was made of him being injured either which is a little odd. I would imagine that he had a bit of a reaction to the injury he picked up against Bolton and that he's being rested ahead of the Chelsea game when the boss will show how highly he rates him by picking him in the team for our most important game of the season so far. Exactly how that will go down with us fans is another matter as his performance on Saturday was probably the worst of all the Arsenal players.

The only real addition to the squad is Kieran Gibbs who returns from the injury he picked up in the great win over the Spuds last week but I don't expect him to play as I think the boss will keep faith with the all French defence that did so poorly on Saturday. Those players will have to do a lot better tonight and they will need to have Alex Song back to his best in his defensive role in front of them. Since he was given the freedom of the pitch when Bolton were down to 10 men against us recently and he scored a goal he seems to have gotten the idea into his head that he can stroll forward as often as he likes and neglect his defensive duties.That has to change tonight ahead of the trip to Chelsea on Sunday and if he can't get it right we are in a lot of bother as we do not have a direct replacement for him.

I think that both Nasri and Wilshere have to play in midfield as well and if they do I don't think either of them will stroll through this game like Diaby and Emmanuel Eboue did on Saturday. Nasri is now our joint top scorer for the season with four goals which he has scored in his last two games and Wilshere was so good against the Spuds that he has to play as often as possible so that he can keep getting better and better.

In attack our options are very limited but I think that Rosicky will play on the right as long as he is fully fit as he wasn't particularly tainted by Saturday's events as he only came on for the last half hour. Despite doing very little on Saturday I'm sure Andrei  Arshavin will start as our options on the left are limited and the manager always picks him when he is available. We were told when we signed him that he goes missing at times but we probably thought it meant the odd game rather than for 80 minutes of every game.

Marouane Chamakh played below the level that we had come to expect from him in Saturday's game and I hope that he just suffered an off day and he'll be back to his best tonight. He has a fair deal of European experience and he was excellent against Braga so I think he will be back to the player we saw in that game.

I expect a reaction from the players tonight and I think concentration levels will be a lot higher than they were on Saturday. A win would put us in a commanding position in the group and leave us close to qualification after only two of our six group games. It's never easy to get a win in Eastern Europe and I think Partizan will try to put us under a lot of pressure tonight with a very loud crowd to back them up. It's up to the defence to stand strong and the whole team to have the confidence to play our game and take the chances when they come our way.

I'm predicting a 2-1 win for Arsenal with Nasri and Wilshere running the show and Chamakh giving us a display of how a centre forward should hold the ball up in a European tie. Obviously my biggest worry is the fact that Fabianski will be in goals and he is likely to accidentally throw the ball into his own net at some stage but you never know, he might actually have a good game.

Reserves And Fantasy Champions League:

In other news the reserves beat Blackpool 3-0 last night with three goals in the last 20 minutes from Chuks Aneke, Jay Emmanuel Thomas and Gilles Sunu. It means the reserves are now on top of their league with ten points from four games and considering that we have so many players out injured it's encouraging that they are doing so well. Don't forget if you have a Fantasy Champions league team to make your change for this week before tonight and if you want to join my league the code is 164121-27747. That's the lot for today but I'll be back tomorrow with a review of the game. 

See You Tomorrow.