Written by Mean Lean on Friday, 19 November 2010 14:37
I am really looking forward to the north London derby tomorrow lunch time, I am excited and obviously nervous about the day. It always means so much to both sets of supporters and in their case it is their cup final. This will probably be the last time in many years where both teams are Champions League sides as our inferiors struggle to cope with life in the big league.
The dragging the rivalry to one side for brief moment, this game should make for an attacking game with many creative attackers on show. Van Der Vaart should come in contact with Alex Song quite a few times during the 90 minutes and if Robin had his way, he would have been playing alongside him.
Robin Van Persie has spoken about his talks with Wenger in trying to persuade our manager to fork out the necessary cash to bring the impressive attacking Dutch midfielder to the Emirates. His performances so far for our little neighbours have showed that he would have been able to make a name for himself at Arsenal but this only tells part of the story. Although Jack Wilshere may well be a naughty boy, he is 18 years of age and his only progressing because he has been given a chance.
Van Der Vaart is 27 years of age and would have prevented Wilshere from first team opportunities. I am willing to put my neck on the line and say that I expect Wilshere to become head and shoulders above van der Vaart by the time he is in his early twenties.
As Wenger would say, Van der Vaart would have killed Jack Wilshere but I believe that Arsenal will have many top years from Wilshere and that can only happen if a path is clear for Jack to play football at Arsenal in the domestic league and in European football. Of course it will be down to Wilshere as to how much he can progress. He has been back in the headlines again for the wrong reasons and he will have to correct his off field antics, much of that comes with age.
He will be fit enough to be back in the squad for tomorrow's game, Arsene Wenger will decide whether to choose Denilson or Wilshere in our engine room.
Nicklas Bendtner has back tracked on his recent public comments about wanting to start all the games for Arsenal admitting that his team mates have been playing well and scoring goals in his absence. You have to wonder about Arsene Wenger's power of persuasion. I am thinking that Derren Brown has been working alongside Arsene at London Colny.
Wenger has said that Bendtner and Van Persie are 95% fit and are close to starting games. In his press conference he didn't want to give away any information as to who would be starting up front.
He did give a slight indication when he stated that Chamakh is very difficult to leave out due to his work rate and form in recent games. I would love to see a fit and sharp Robin Van Persie dragging the ball away from the dangling leg of William Gallas followed by a curling left foot shot into the top corner then Cesc jumping on the pumping fist of our number 10 *sigh* wouldn't that be a treat?
Anyway it is very likely that Chamakh will continue to work the line and take over from Robert Pires and Emmanuel Adebayor as their new tormentor in-Chief.
Arsene wants to our supporters to show respect to Gallas tomorrow afternoon but I cannot see that happening for one moment. To be honest I couldn't care less about Gallas. In fact I think the booing from the Arsenal support will only give him extra incentive to do well. He looks out of form and out of sorts, I would rather we played against that than an adrenaline fuelled version which would be closer to the version who played so well last season for us.
I would love to see Gallas try and deal with Chamakh in the air though, if we can swing in enough crosses into Chamakh then that could be quite fun.
Anyway, more on the match tomorrow with some early pre match thoughts.
Back tomorrow.
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