Almost 10 months since he was carried from the turf at Birmingham City with his left ankle mangled and horribly distorted, the Croatia international returns to action for Arsenal’s reserve side, with a return to the first team finally coming into view.Continue Reading
“It is great news,” said Wenger of the forward’s imminent return. “The problem for Eduardo is that, even though he is playing a game, we still must get him back to a competitive level. We don’t know how much patience he will need but, if patience is needed, we have to take it.
“I still believe we have to give him at least one-and-a-half month’s competition before he will be back at the level he was before. But he has a fantastic basis of fitness because he has worked unbelievably hard. I mean unbelievably. So he could still surprise us by being a little bit quicker.”
It’s really good to see him on action again.Had he been not injured,our title challenge last season could bring us to title.Hopefully he could feature in Liverpool game next week.We needed a striker that able to turn chances into goals and his presence could boost our confidence.
But,how the “positive signs” give any possibility for us to win the title?How these “signs” bring us out from our so called “transition period”?Continue Reading
Standard of teams in BPL have improved leaps and bounds and we are still in transition period.How long the transition period could be??5 years?10 years?Anybody know??It has been 3 years and we are having nothing in our silverware list.
Yes,it’s arguable that we didn’t really win anything before Wenger arrives here.In fact,back in that time we would be very happy if we qualify to play UEFA Cup.But again,we must strive for improvement.We can’t compare with the past.If everyone thinks like that then we are doomed.
Of course,our team have improved based on Boro game.But is it enough to bring us sliverware(s)?What I mean here is silverware,FA Cup,Champions League,EPL title.Beautiful games must be decorated with wins and victories.Without them,no one will remember our beautiful passing game.
For how many times we are complaining how our defence fared badly against smaller teams who loves to park a bus in front of their goal and put one striker in front.Even with such formation,they could eke out a draw or even sometimes a win over us.How ridiculous it could be?
But that problem have existed for 2-3 years and it still happens now. I really can’t say a word about them.
Ex-Gunners Aliadere disappointed us again with his equaliser at 29th minute.It seems that our title challenge is almost over.Highlight video here
Highlights
Game Comments
It seems that our title challenge is almost over,but fortunately Liverpool and Manchester United too dropped points and Scolari can be very happy over this news,since Blues can take this chance to step into first place in EPL.
Talking about the game,the same stories went again this time just like our previous games in Riverside.We attacked,dominated the game but struggled to score and failed to defend against Boro’s counter-attacks.
We could lost 2-1,we could win 2-1 but overall Boro really played well against us.We were not creative enough in the game and the fact that both goals were scored by a cross-header showed that both teams were lucky to score a goal in that case.
Our game is not open enough to let the our passes work perfectly and that is why we struggle to score in recent games.Persie seemed to lose his scoring boots and could not show up in critical times for the excepting in Chelsea game.
We must have a player like Steven Gerrard who could save us during critical times.Our leader Fabregas must be good enough to command 11 players including himself and create the winning factor,or confidence to win games.
Gunners’ recent lost to Porto had made the fans worried and our critics’ voice rise again.We once more fear Gunners will suffer from inconsistencies and poor away game record.Moreover,our record in Riverside has not been good in recent years.
But for this game,five Arsenal’s first team players will be playing after recovering from their respective injuries.Our leader Cesc Fabregas are among the returnees.Read the article
Fabregas,Sagna,Clichy,Adebayor and Persie could return for this game.Middlesbrough on the other hand,should have no injuries to report.
Technical Details
Either 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 is workable in this game,depending on the course of the game.There is very high chances of us winning ugly,if we manage to win this game.
I certainly think that Bendtner should feature as a substitute only,for his form as striker is bad and he plays better as a substitute.But I still trust Eboue on this game.Gallas seems to be leaving on January with his current form.He should be stop playing for us but we have no choice because we need some strong and experienced player to stand and defend against violent teams in BPL.
Overall
I really hope that we could get 3 points from this game,as every points lost will put us further from our title that we dreamed for 4 years.Secondly,a win will boost further our confidence to play the remaining tough and tight December schedule.
Despite the game lost,we qualify to knock-out stage.I think there is very little or no disadvantage of finishing second.Even we top the group,we still have the possibility of drawing strong teams like Real Madrid,Inter Milan and Lyon.
About the second game at home if we finish top,it don’t really matter if we play our home game well.For example if we managed to win 2-0 at home in first league,and score a goal in second league,we are positioned very well to beat our opponent for they will have to score 4 goals in order to beat us.
So,our home performance is more important in this case.A goal conceded at home could be a disaster.
Talking about the game,we don’t need a pundit to see our team playing poorly.A 3 years old kid could see we were in trouble yesterday.We lost the ball easily,we let Porto sprang a very dangerous counter-attack and our attack seemed to be destined to fail.
Let’s see what team we draw tomorrow.If we draw Barcelona then it would be a very tough game for us.But we can be rest assured that we will draw a strong team for they are the group leaders.
