Afternoon,
In today’s Arspective we will look at a tough upcoming fixture for Arsenal. We go away Ewood park to play Blackburn. We will be in for a battle for the umpteenth time against what some people call as the Walrus!! (Sam Allardyce) . The Walrus is known to have very little imagination and punt the ball long and ask his players to get into a skirmish. Wenger does not have great memories of playing Bolton (when Big Sam was their manager). A lot of Arsenal teams have been outmuscled (sometimes illegally) by Bolton teams.
Squillaci has almooooost completed the signing and may be available for tomorrow’s game. (Arsenal.com still has not publicly announced the signing yet. The longest medical this??) Koscielny should be back for us to play alongside TV. Denilson has been announced fit enough to start (although I dont think he will) and Djourou will be on the bench. Nasri and Bendtner are still 3 to 4 weeks from recovery. Cesc and Van Persie will start in all probability with Arshavin and Rosicky on the flanks. This means that Chamakh may go back to the bench.
Wenger, in the pre-Blackburn interview, expressed his delight to sign Squillaci and had a special mention for Rosicky and called him a “Complete Arsenal Player”. That, to me, comes as no surprise. The Czech has been very impressive this season. I know it’s been only two games, but I said this last time and I repeat, that he could be a key player for us this season.
From Squillaci’s first interview, what I could figure out is that he is not going to be a star-player who grabs attention like Terry or Ferdinand. But, he is going to be an efficient defender who will add a lot of experience to this young Arsenal squad. The 30-year-old has played Champions league football consistently with Lyon before he came to Sevilla. Toto also played in the final of the Champions League in 2004 against Porto. En route to the final, Monaco had beaten teams like Chelsea and Real Madrid and a young Squillaci was an integral part of the squad, which included Adebayor and Saviola. (By the way, Adebayor warming the bench against Liverpool was,…… well Heart-warming! From Champions League football to bench-warming.)
Hope we tame the Walrus this time!
Until next time, it is adios amigos!
