The Injury Lottery.

Here we go Gooners,

The international injury lottery starts tonight as Rosicky takes on Scotland, Arshavin takes on Ireland, Eboue takes on the force that is Burundi and Jack Wilshere will take a staring role in England U21's game against Romania before he joins the big boys in the full squad. Jack's double dipping is great for him but not great for Arsenal. Wilshere has appeared in every game so far this year and although he's nice and young it has to catch up with him at some point and it'll be Arsenal FC that suffers when he does. Sagna, Nasri, Diaby and Clichy will line up France and Chamakh faces Tanzania in tomorrows game and then all except Chamakh and Eboue have another game to look forward to in midweek so plenty of opportunity for someone to get injured, putting them out for the infamous 4-6 weeks that seems to be tagged to almost every injury we get.

All that being said this week will provide a nice break for some of our players like Fabregas, Bendnter, Vermealen, etc who will all be enjoying a weekend off to relax before returning next week to finish getting fit for the Birmingham game. I said yesterday how I was looking forward to the other side of this and I think this will be the strongest we have come out of an international break for a long time. I look forward to our spine returning.

I don't think that Van Persie will be back in time for Birmingham however Bendtner has declared himself fit and with a week for our medical staff to access him we should see him at least on the bench for the visit of Brum. Our mighty Dane will be really important over the next few weeks while RVP is getting fit. He will not however return in his best form, he hasn't played at all this year and it will take time for him to settle back into the game, hopefully not too much time though. That also goes for our other players returning. Players take time to get back to their best but our boys will need to do it quickly as after the international break we only have two games before we travel to Man City.

I am off now to cross my fingers and toes, pray to any Gods that'll listen and sacrifice a couple of goats to ensure all our players get through the week injury free

Until tomorrow,
Goonerfish

Injury free Internationals & Super Rob returns.

International week how we love you.

This close to the weekend I am feeling an empty painful void as Premier league footie takes a break and our stars go away with their countries into a lottery of which one of our stars will snap a leg.

International week is an event I have grown to dread. We always seem to be 2 or 3 players short at the end of it and more often than not players that are starting to hit form i.e. Walcott.

However, a ray of light is starting to shine through the clouds as this time all our players are already injured. Walcott, Fabregas, Vermaelen and Van Persie will not take any part in this weeks Euro 2012 qualifiers, in fact, this time I'm looking forward to the other side of the internationals as two, possibly three of those names will be back in action when the real stuff returns. We could host Birmingham with almost a fully fit squad and I can't remember the last time that happened.

In other news, Bobby Pires has returned to the Arsenal training ground. He was released from Spanish club Villarreal in the summer. He's 36 now so I don't think we'll see a repeat of the Sol Campbell saga but it is nice to see Pires at the Colney again and his stories of success will only help our youngsters. Fans and pundits for a long time have said that no one in the Arsenal squad know how to win things, Bobby did and his experiences will be a huge benefit to everyone at the club. It's another smart move from Wenger and the former invincible can only increase the hunger in our young stars.

Another former invincible has been in the news today too. Patrick Vieira has come out and said that Arsenal Old boys Man City will not be able to win the league this year, however believes we can. It has also been suggested that he could retire at the end of this season. If he does it will be a sad day but Gooners will always remember that his best playing days were in our glorious red and wish him well.

Last thing today was actually brought up on Arsenal.com. Squillaci had the privilege of being our Captain at Stamford Bridge at the weekend in only his sixth appearance. This could possibly be a record for our club (excluding our first ever captain, obviously). Do you know of a player to captain us sooner? comment below and/or on Arsenal's website and share the knowledge. I actually think it's a shame if it is a record as our first four choices for captain were all injured but hey ho, a record's a record. Well done Squillaci.

Till tomorrow Gooners,
Goonerfish.

Wenger's Chelsea summary & transfer rumours already.

Evening Gooners, two areas to cover today,

Firstly the official stuff. Arsenal send out official communication from time to time including Arsene Wenger's weekly view of the world. I was interested to see how he would approach the Chelsea result after publicly being very honest about our performance against West Brom. He must have been knocked for 6 by it as he started with

"I think we demonstrated on Saturday that you can play well and lose the match"

I'm pretty sure we played Sunday but the point was valid. He went on to say

"The Chelsea game should have been over within a minute - we had the first two chances and we missed that header from six yards"

"we missed too many chances at that level and in the final third you need to be more clinical offensively and defensively. We had a great team performance and great energy. But we have to be more clinical to win titles - we can't lose a game like that"

I was surprised to read that last statement. Wenger has always been very protective of his squad and that sounded very negative. Could Wenger finally be losing patience with his players? I have a feeling that he is using the pressure from fans  and the board to bring home trophies to put a bit more pressure on the players to deliver. If this is the case we will finally see how mentally strong our guys are and it may be the extra push everyone needs to bring some success back to our great club.

Arsene did then sound a bit more familiar with

"I was not angry with my team. I felt sorry for them because they had an outstanding attitude and an outstanding display"

He also payed tribute to Jack Wilshere and Abou Diaby and rightly so, both players were superb.

Now for part two. We are exactly 88 days away from the start of the transfer window and already we are being linked with a number of players.

Mark Schwarzer has again come out seemingly determined to force a move in January. I;m sorry but I said this in the summer and I'll say it again now, Schwarzer is not better than the keepers we already have in our squad. I would honestly be surprised if we brought in a keeper in January, as long as we don't have a string of howlers from both Almunia and Fabianski then Wenger will stick with what we have.

A new pair of players linked with us are the Lukaku brothers. Romelu and Jordan both play for Anderlecht  with Romelu Lukaku being the latest teenager to be called one of the most exciting youngsters in European football. Now I can't comment either way on the ability of these guys but surely, October 5th is too early to be considering such things. Arsene Wenger rarely lets his targets become common knowledge (Arshavin and Nasri excluded) so I can only assume this is a move by the brother's agent or Anderlecht themselves to remind other clubs that they have competition for the players so better prepare bigger bids.

I'm still hurting from the weekend so will leave it there today, but would like to add one more thing. To
all those fans who have reappeared calling for Arsene Wenger to be sacked, ask yourself two questions. Why would you sack the most successful manager in our history? and Who would you replace him with? No other manager will get more from these players, or understand what this clubs needs, so with due respect, sit down and shut up!!!!

Until tomorrow,
Goonerfish.

I don't care if it's Chelsea, it's just 1 game.

I am still getting over my disappointment of Sunday, but only the result, not the performance.

We arrived at Stamford Bridge without Vermaelen, Fabregas, Walcott or Van Persie and despite the result, our team gave the better performance. We outplayed Chelsea throughout and we created chances and openings at a fairly regular interval but our downfall was that we failed to take any. Don't get me wrong, Chelsea defended very, very well but if we had that striker with the killer instinct of a Wright or Alan 'Smudge' Smith we probably would've at least scored. Chamakh seemed a little off but that is probably because of the amount of games he has had to play recently in a league he is still adapting to, Bendtner is almost ready now so he should help share the burden of replacing Robin Van Persie.

Chelsea won the game simply because they were more efficient with the possession they had. This is something that I feel comes with the experience of winning. We are not used to winning, we are used to playing very well and falling just short, we need trophies in our cabinet and the experience that comes with it. It is likely that victories in the league cup and FA Cup will come before the big trophies but in all honesty, I would be happy with one of those while finishing in the top 3 again this year. All we need is one trophy to get our players used to that taste of victory and more will follow.

Sorry, got off track there, back to the game. We have to look at this in as positive light as we can, as I see it, to truly complete you need to aim to win your home games against the big teams and avoid defeat away. A draw would have been a good result yesterday and the majority of Gooners would have been happy with that so we have lost only 1 point against that target. We drew at Sunderland whereas last year we lost there, 1 point gained. Get my point? It doesn't matter who we were playing it is only 1 game. I know that some may see it as an optimistic view but hey ho, I'm Goonerfish and that is how I roll, if you don't like it bugger off and be a miserable Scouser.

In my eyes, most of our players came out of yesterday's game in a good light, Fabianski was solid, Clichy is starting to get back to the player we know, Sagna put in a very under-rated performance, Diaby was like a new player, Wilshere continued to be the growing phenomenon that he is and Nasri gets better every game and has starting adapting his pre-season form in the central position to his more regular position of a wide attacker. As I said, Chamakh was below par, both centre backs struggled at times and Song wasn't...... um,...... singing.

Our players have an international break now to avoid getting injured and then come back motivated and ready to take on Birmingham where maybe, just maybe we should start seeing some players return.

Chins up Gooners,
Goonerfish.

Just the game! & Wilshere's inspiring words.

I'm was planning (and failed) to write today's blog early as we approach the Chelsea game as for the couple of hours before I'll be too nervous to write anything and at about six o clock I'm either going to be too happy, too depressed or too angry to write anything other than a pointless rant.

I've been browsing the blogsphere and news channels for Arsenal news to share with you good folk and realised there seems to be almost nothing about. The Chelsea game has taken over the entire Arsenal world and you know what? I love that.

I am not hearing stories of who we are about to buy. There is no mention of the the player we are about to sell for a ridiculously low price. Not a single whisper of any player's DNA (Get over yourselves Barca!!!!) and not one single player is being interviewed because our captain has slept with their wife (Yes, you JT you dirty thug). The point I'm getting at is that during the season this is how our Arsenal news should be, just the game.

The only news doing the rounds other than match previews is one of our players saying how great another one of our players is. The most recent is Samir Nasri praising Chamakh. Now of course all these quotes are in interviews so a public face has to be had and all the right things need to be said but then the world introduced twitter and some players in our young squad couldn't resist joining in on the trend. Jack Wilshere, Cesc, and Denilson are all on twitter, I think the Chamakh account is real and a load of our youth players are on there too. This is an excellent way for us fans to get a little view of what are players are like away from the press interviews for example Cesc's good luck messages to the team and letting us know he's gutted not to be playing, but I'll leave this incredibly short post with my favorite tweet, possibly ever, which was one I came across from little Jack Wilshere a couple of days ago, he tweeted

" Feeling the pressure? No way. Feeling ruthless. Ready 2 burn down the bridge! "

If that's not enough to get you up for today's battle at the bridge I don't know what is. I hope the rest of the team have that much fire in their bellies.

Back tomorrow with a match review hopefully praising our boys performance and celebrating being only 1 point of the top spot.

Goonerfish.

BTW, you can follow me on twitter too here and I'm also on Facebook.

Spineless Arsenal face first real test. Chelsea Preview.

This is it. Our first real big test against credible title challengers comes tomorrow at Stamford Bridge.

Is it goes without saying that this close to such an important game we are riddled with injuries. we are missing the complete spine of our team with Almunia, Vermaelen, Fabregas and Van Persie are all set to miss out. Now can you imagine Chelsea without Cech, Terry, Lampard AND Drogba? No, neither can I. Plus that's not including Walcott, Gibbs and Ramsey who are all out too.

It's likely that Fabianski will be given the chance to continue in goal, hopefully he can take the confidence he will of gained from last week and have a stormer. He must know that he is just one mistake from a backlash from Arsenal fans so the time Almunia is out injured we will learn a lot about Fabianski's character, we all know he can be a great goalkeeper but now it's up to him to start showing it week in, week out.

In defence Kos and Squillaci will keep there partnership going in the centre of defence and the only other real question Arsene Wenger had was who would start at left back but in good ol' Arsenal tradition, Keiran Gibbs made the choice for him by getting inured, he will now miss the action for the next 3 weeks.

Midfield should be Arsene's hardest desicion. Song is almost certain to start but the two to join him may not be as easy to read, the main candidates will be Wilshere, Nasri, Diaby and Denilson. Wenger seems to like playing two more defensive midfielders in the centre when we're away from home against a decent team so I doubt we'll see Nasri and Wilshere together and think Diaby will get the nod ahead of Denilson.

Nasri however may get the nod to play further up the field on the right of our attacking triangle. Chamakh will almost certainly lead the attack but Bendtner is back in contention now so over the next few games he should help release some of the pressure sitting on Chamakh's shoulders...... but not at Chelsea. Our Russian magician should keep his place on the left of attack.

We have not kept a clean sheet since our 6-0 win against Braga and if we're being honest, I don't see Stamford Bridge as the place that it's going to change especially when Drogba seems to be guaranteed at least one goal every time he plays us. It'll be interesting to see who picks him up. Koscielny in my opinion isn't strong enough to deal with Drogba so I expect Squillaci to monitor him.

Goonerfish's line-up:

Fabianski


Sagna - Squillaci - Koscielny - Clichy


Song


Wilshere - Diaby


Nasri - Arshavin


Chamakh



Score Chelsea 1 - 2 Arsenal

OK, so, the score is more from my heart than my head but we always seem to excel when the opposition are considered as such heavy favourites. I think Chamakh will own John Terry all day and should bag at least one goal for himself. I have always said that when it comes to games against the big teams you need to look for three points at home and at least a draw away from home so a point will be a good result this weekend but I think we have the ability to take all three, even without our spine.

What do you think Gooners, do we have enough to take all three points tomorrow? Leave your predictions below. Keep cheering Gooners,

Goonerfish.

The future is bright, the future is Arsenal.

I'll start today's blog with a confession. From 11.15pm last night I was queuing at my local Asda for my copy of Fifa 11, I finally got home at about 1:00 in the morning, popped it into my Playstation and started my first FA Cup with the mighty Arsenal.

Now this isn't a game review, but one thing that made me think, was the quality of our squad. As I chose my starting 11 I couldn't help but notice the quality I was leaving out. If everyone is fit the the likes of Rosicky, Chamakh, Wilshere, Vela, Denilson, Bendtner, Gibbs, Eboue, Diaby would all struggle to get into our team, then if you consider who is in our team, Vermaelen, Fabregas, Van Persie, Walcott, Nasri, Arshavin and so on you have to ask yourself the question "do we have the strongest squad in the Premiership this year?"

I can't think of another team that has so much quality in depth, ironically the one thing that Arsenal have been criticised for in past seasons. If we look at our rivals for the league title, Chelsea obviously have quality in their first 11 in the form of Thug Terry, Fat Lampard, Malouda, Anelka and of course Didier 'must score twice against Arsenal' Drogba, Essien and as much as it hurts to say Cashly, but who do they have that can step in in the case of an injury? No-one. Man Utd are even worse on paper, they have Rooney as the only real big talent in their team, not one other player in their squad would be a regular in Arsenal's starting line-up, they have a few players starting to emerge like we did 3-4 years ago but I think they are entering their transition stage now, once Scholes, Van der Sar and Giggs admit defeat to old age we could see a new era for Man Utd and not in a way their fans are going to like. It'll be interesting to see how much stick they get when they go a few years without silverware.

Next down the league is Man City who have attempted to buy everyone available aka Chelsea when Roman Abramovich was still interested in owning a football club so obviously they have a lot of talent but talented individuals do not make a quality team as i think they'll find out this year. Liverpool don't even warrant a mention, and the I'll let the spuds keep thinking that they have a decent squad.

I know that I am biased in my opinions, but what other team has a bench full of players that have all been capped at full international level and then a group of youngsters waiting in the wings with the ability of the Arsenal kids, no-one else has a Frimpong, JET, Lansbury etc etc.

My point is, that with the squad we have available to us surely we are scarily close to a fantastic era in Arsenal's history. Our team have been playing together for years now and that can only help the team as a unit (something Man City will not benefit from for a couple of years at least) and silverware cannot be far away.

Keep the faith Gooners, Other clubs are already copying our youth structures and financial plans, it won't be long until they wish they could copy our success too.

Lets hope our squad players can come in on Sunday and prove me right by spanking Chelsea at the bridge.

Back with a match preview tomorrow,
Goonerfish.