Seven out of seven. Life is good at the Grove. Birds are singing and every Gooner is spotting a smile. Jokes and friendly banter flow freely, even of hairdos and whatnot.  


This comes in the wake of seven consecutive victories, beginning in early February and culminating in a 3-0 spanking of Aston Villa last Saturday (March 24, 2012). 
Up next, Queens Park Rangers. Rangers find themselves in the middle of a relegation battle and we have to be at our best to claim all three points.  


My predicted line up: (4-2-1-3)
                   
                                                           Szczesny


Sagna                       Koscienly                        Vermaelen                         Gibbs


                                           Arteta                           Song 


                                                          Rosicky 


Walcott                                              Van Persie                                      Chamberlain


Prediction: The team seems to be high on confidence, and I don't see us not scoring. My only worry is that with Zamora on top, Vermaelen and Koscienly have to be alert to his threat. 


QPR  1 - 3 Arsenal.


COYG!

Top four, FA Cup and a shot at the UCL?

I think so.
Jack Wilshere is back!

Jack Wilshere is scheduled to return to full training at Arsenal next week, with Arsène Wenger fighting to rein in the midfielder's exuberance and his desperation to make a prompt playing comeback.

The 20-year-old is determined to feature in the Champions League last-16 first-leg tie away to Milan on 15 February and, ideally, one or two matches before that, and he is eager to help his team-mates, after their stuttering start to 2012. Arsenal have lost both of their Premier League fixtures, away at Fulham and Swansea City, to temper the optimism that had built towards the turn of the year.

Wilshere has not played all season, because of a stress fracture to his ankle, which stemmed from a problem he suffered as a 16-year-old and he has not only been a frustrated spectator. His rehabilitation has been pockmarked by set-backs, which have tested his patience and faith, but he is now primed to enter the final phase, having astonished the club's medics with his progress. When he underwent surgery at the end of September, they could not envisage him returning before March, even though Wenger hoped it would be mid-to-late February. The manager has, more recently, brought that estimate forward. The medics have found themselves under pressure. But they have come to consider Wilshere as a "medical miracle," because of how quickly his body has healed.

What has cheered them most is that the bone, or the injury site, is clear and there is little risk of related muscular problems. But caution in the final stretch will be the watchword, as Wilshere prepares to reintegrate work with the ball in training after the team's home fixture against Manchester United on Sunday. He has been running and working tirelessly in the gym for some weeks. Wilshere requires at least two further weeks of conditioning before he will be considered for selection and Wenger will also need to be wary of the player's high pain threshold and his capacity to play on in spite of discomfort. Wilshere has regularly demonstrated this admirable trait in the past and it was, arguably, a factor in the injury.

Wenger has made it clear that he does not intend to strengthen his squad in January any further than the short-term loan acquisition of Thierry Henry from New York Red Bulls and so Wilshere has come to resemble a star new signing in waiting. There will be pressure on him to cure the team's ills instantly, which feels unfair, but he is ready to embrace it while Wenger might also be confronted by a selection headache, in terms of which of his existing midfield trio he would have to omit. Aaron Ramsey appears most at risk, given that he has occupied the more advanced role that had been earmarked for Wilshere but the Wales captain can also play deeper, where Mikel Arteta and Alex Song have formed a partnership. Arteta's understated influence was missed in the 3-2 loss at Swansea on Sunday.

Prediction: Arsenal Versus Manchester United

When: Sunday, January 22, 9:30 P.M IST
Where: Emirates Stadium

Arsenal News


Thomas Vermaelen, Mikel Arteta, Bacary Sagna and Thierry Henry are all rated doubtful for this clash. I'm going to go ahead and assume that all four are fit and available for selection.


Predicted Line Up:


Formation: 4-3-2-1


I have a feeling that Ramsey is going to get a breather and Henry is going to start. I believe Wenger will give Arshavin a final chance to prove himself, and I do hope he starts in his preferred role as second striker. I would love it if Wenger takes a gamble and starts with Chamberlain instead of Walcott




                                          Sczcesny

Sagna                        Koscienly                  Mertesacker          Vermaelen

                                      Song                                             Arteta

        Chamberlain                              Arshavin                       Henry

Van Persie

This looks like a fairly strong Arsenal side. If all goes well, I think we can give United a good old thrashing. 

Prediciton: I'm going to stick my neck out and go for a comfortable Arsenal win

Arsenal-4   United-0 

It's time to start winning Ugly

Yes, Arsenal are known for their easy on the eye, one touch football. They show us why football is called the 'Beautiful Game'. While I am a follower of this philosophy, I believe Arsenal need to play ugly and kill off games to achieve more success. Win in style and lose in style, that is Arsenal. Maybe it's to win ugly occasionally.

Winning ugly is the DNA of champions. Countless title-winning sides have struggled on the road or against relegation strugglers but have still managed to grind out those three precious points.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s United sides have been the blueprint for scraping through dire games and across Manchester, City’s ego-laden squad proved their metal last night at Wigan.

An average City performance, without the inspirational Yaya Touré and Vincent Kompany gelling the team together, managed to maintain their lead at the top courtesy of Edin Dzeko’s first-half winner.

Similarly, Chelsea edged past Sunderland 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. The Blues are certainly not firing on all cylinders under André Villas-Boas but are managing to pick up points.

On the other hand Arsène Wenger’s Gunners have well and truly fallen off the bandwagon and are worryingly close to capitulating and falling away from the Champions League qualification places.

What has gone wrong for the Gunners? Wenger had managed to drag his depleted squad briefly back into title contention but once again alarm bells are ringing and results have dwindled.

The defeat by Swansea on Sunday highlighted Arsenal’s frail backline, a lack of composure and an underperforming squad.

Arsenal look scared at the back and lack a leader – Thomas Vermaelen is superb but frequently injured. In Wenger’s defence all of the Gunners’ fullbacks are out injured and a seasoned international in Per Mertesacker has been shambolic.

Without a solid back line, the Gunners can’t build the foundations for winning ugly and winning titles.

The vulnerability of Arsenal’s defence has been a frustrating feature for the past four seasons and it is bamboozling why Wenger hasn’t solved the problem with some astute signings.

Gary Cahill has signed for Chelsea – a deal Wenger could and should have done. Seven million pounds is an absolute steal for Chelsea and it could end up ruining Arsenal’s season.

Defensive reinforcements are a necessity but also some composure in the final third will be crucial if Arsenal are going to recover lost ground on their rivals.

Thierry Henry has returned, Robin van Persie continues to dazzle but the rest have to step up to the plate. Wenger’s insistence on starting Andrey Arshavin is bizarre – the Russian is failing to provide for his team in terms of goals and effort.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain isn’t getting game time. He’s more direct than Walcott and has an accurate distribution off the flanks.

Whether he starts or not, the youngster needs to be involved far more – and Wenger needs to freshen up the squad with signings and rotations.

Hopefully, we can go all the way in the FA Cup, steal a top four finish and give it all in the Champions League. 

COME ON YOU GUNNERS!

New Year, New Hope

When Arsene Wenger reflects on 2011, the word “crisis” tumbles readily from his lips. The beginning of the season was as gloomy a period as many Arsenal supporters can remember, with the threat of a chaotic end to the Wenger era feeling very real.

The manager, though, remembers a darker time and it was from the very same calendar year.

“The end of last season was, I think, more difficult than even the rocky time we had at the beginning of the season because it was all doom and gloom and only negatives,” Wenger said. “The last two months of last season . . . you will not win the Champions League, you will not win the Premier League, you will not win the FA Cup. You just have to get over the line as well as you can. That was difficult. This season, we had a hard, tough time but we had something in front of us. We could still fight for something.”

The lows have been inked indelibly on to the season’s narrative – the losses of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri; the 8-2 defeat at Manchester United; the defensive shambles at Blackburn Rovers on September 17th that reduced them to 16th in the table. But through it all Wenger kept the faith.

After this largely comfortable win which lifted Arsenal into the Champions League places, there were, not for the first time, traces of vindication emanating from Wenger, even if the lessons of recent history dictate they must be tempered. Despite the team’s rise from the brink, the season essentially remains on a knife-edge.

Wenger hopes his players can be stronger for the collective pain they have endured but his reasons for new year’s optimism were persuasive. Arsenal have played away at the Manchester clubs, Tottenham and Chelsea, yet all four have still to visit the Emirates.

Arsenal’s home form will be decisive. They travel to Fulham today having taken 29 points from an available 36 and the majority of their long-term injury victims, namely Jack Wilshere, Bacary Sagna and Kieran Gibbs, are only three or four weeks from returns.

Wilshere’s comeback offers the most tantalising possibilities. And then there is Robin van Persie. He is still fit and, while that is the case, the goals will flow. His winner here gave him 35 from 36 Premier League games in 2011.

“I didn’t know that we would be in the top four at the end of the year,” Wenger admitted. “I felt, first of all, to stop the crisis. By crisis, I mean the confidence had dropped too much and you play with fear. But I was confident because we had a good spirit.

“I knew as well that we had the Champions League to play so we had something to focus on and that’s why, slowly, we came back. It was not the easiest year of my career. I had a few hard years but this one was difficult.”

Happy New Year!

Proud to be a Gooner!

SUCH a gulf between the clubs in finances and philosophies, yet so little between the teams as Manchester City squeezed past a weakened Arsenal 1-0 on Sunday.

Sometimes the truth is to be found on the substitutes' bench, and so it was at Etihad Stadium. It was there in the hapless figure of Andrey Arshavin.

When Arsene Wenger needed to refresh his team, he saw no better option than the Russian, who, having replaced Theo Walcott, proceeded to give a performance so bad as to make you wonder how the unused Yossi Benayoun could possibly be worse.

Only Fernando Torres knows how to mislay form and confidence more conclusively than the wretched Arshavin.

Then, when the Arsenal manager wanted a striker, he had no better option than Marouane Chamakh, who lumbered ineffectually, as he has done too often since he joined the Gunners 18 months ago from Bordeaux.

Top-level football is not just a game of resources, as Arsenal proved by giving City such a fight, but Wenger must be struck by the limitations of his reserves.

Still, this was a day when even without Jack Wilshere, four fullbacks and an over-reliance on Robin van Persie, Arsenal might have found parity with the team that has lost just once in the league all season.

But as Wenger lamented: "We found encouragement but no points." Twelve now separate the Gunners from City, and Arsenal's campaign remains one in which finishing in the top four would be greeted with profound relief.

No wonder Wenger was not sure whether to be proud or peeved. City and Arsenal are miles apart in so many ways, but on Sunday the gap did not feel like a gulf. Hundreds of millions of pounds bought City only a narrow victory over their feeder club.

But it was the billionaires who strode on in the hope of a first championship in 44 years, while Arsenal is left chasing fourth place as the height of its ambition.

It was City which could announce Samir Nasri as man of the match, but it might as well have blown a giant raspberry.

It was not a declaration of fact -- Joe Hart was among the more obvious choices -- but an expression of mischief. As recently as Friday, Wenger had been ruing the imbalance in resources that forces him to wave off Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor, Gael Clichy and Nasri to City.

"The financial difference between us and teams like Manchester City has become too big to hope to keep players for eight, nine or 10 years," Wenger said.

Yesterday he heard City fans crowing that Van Persie would be next to go north for money and medals, with rumours of a bid for the Arsenal captain.

Wenger still backs himself to overcome these odds, but on Sunday he ran out of options and luck. Injury had already deprived him of Bacary Sagna, Carl Jenkinson, Kieran Gibbs and Andre Santos.

"We were without four fullbacks and the first injury we get is a fullback," Wenger said after losing Johan Djourou, one of four centre halves spread across the back line.

On went Ignasi Miquel, a teenager who prefers to defend from the middle. "We can't buy 17 fullbacks," Wenger said, although City might if the rules permitted. When Djourou departed, Laurent Koscielny was required to shuffle over to right back, and his lack of familiarity with the position offered Mario Balotelli plenty of space for City's goal.

Wojciech Szczesny managed to parry Balotelli's shot, but with Arsenal trying to defend on its own goal-line, it was inviting trouble, and the ball fell to David Silva for his easiest finish of the season.

The next 15 minutes showed all of Arsenal's defensive vulnerability and the Gunners might have conceded several more, with Pablo Zabaleta striking a post, Sergio Aguero pulling a shot across goal and Nasri spurning the chance to set up Balotelli for a tap-in.

Yet Arsenal stayed in the game and might have equalised but for Hart's brilliance in denying Thomas Vermaelen from a smart free kick. It was an open, thrilling game that offered some hope to Wenger but perhaps more to Manchester United as it strives to keep the heat on City, which, in its past two matches, has shown a few defensive weaknesses.

"It could have gone both ways," Wenger said. "Overall we were a bit unlucky."

If he could take heart from the performance, he expects to have Wilshere back by early Febuary, with Abou Diaby also to return. So that is the midfield strengthened.

In attack, Gervinho and Chamakh will be away for weeks at the Africa Cup of Nations, which is why he is considering a move to take Thierry Henry back to the Emirates. As for the defence, Gibbs should be the first of the fullbacks to return.

Wenger has restored the belief, the purpose and the forward momentum to his team, and those qualities were evident even in defeat by the strongest team in the country. Pride is restored, but Arsenal still has much to do if it is not to finish fifth.

A Good Old 1-0 for Good Old Arsenal

It seemed fitting that, on a day where Arsenal were celebrating the amazing history and heritage of the club, the final score against Everton was a score line that has become synonymous with the Arsenal. I doubt that there have been many 1-0 wins down the 125 years of Arsenal Football Club that were won by such a sweet volley.

With three true legends of the club deservedly honoured and immortalised outside the stadium, the modern day icon and legend of the current team continued to do his best to lead this new and developing team to make history of their own. As a squad, the current team aren’t nearly as good some of the ones represented by the legends at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, however they’re nowhere near as bad as we all feared they would be at the start of the season.

A classic 1-0 win now looks even more valuable after the footballing weekend, with Tottenham and Manchester City’s defeats opening up the top four again. Chelsea’s win against City knocked us back out of the top four after we temporarily held the position, however it did signal the end of the last team’s unbeaten start to the season, so we can all breathe easy about still being the only Invincibles.

It seemed that the match itself on Saturday was a slight anti-climax following the 125 anniversary celebrations, however the moment that won the game did match the occasion. Robin van Persie’s volley was superb. You could add any superlative in about the goal. The pass from Song was excellent, but he could never have expected van Persie to dispatch the ball the way he did. The finish from van Persie typified how confident he is about his game at the moment. Even after an indifferent first half, van Persie instinctively knew what he was going to do with the chipped pass from Song. Some of the greatest volleys can be slight shinners, but van Persie’s was a perfect strike off the sweet spot of his boot. If you could make the perfect left foot volley, I think it would look a bit like Robin van Persie’s against Everton.

The goal did raise the same question that Arsenal fans have been facing all season. What happens when Robin van Persie gets injured? Honestly, I thought we’d have seen both Marouane Chamakh and Ju-Young Park make that question less of a concern by now. However both have looked so far short of what we need as a back-up to van Persie. You could argue that we’re being overly harsh on Chamakh and Park because of the high level set by Robin van Persie, and any comparison with our captain is a long way off the mark. Although both Chamakh and Park haven’t looked like good strikers for teams lower down in the Premier League, let alone a team chasing the Champions League. With Chamakh also going off to the African Cup of Nations in January, it is the one area of the team we have to strengthen in.

The other position that might see an addition is full-back. The news of Andre Santos being out for three months is a big blow as he was just settling into the pace of the Premier League, and was improving with every game. He was also giving our attack an extra dimension with charging runs forward from full back. With Bacary Sagna and Carl Jenkinson not near a return at right back, and Kieran Gibbs suffering from yet another injury on his lengthy list of problems, we currently have all four full backs out with significant injuries. It isn’t just a case of making do for a couple of games, this problem could go on for a few months. We’re arguably more defensively solid with four centre backs in defence, however we noticeably suffer going forward. It’s a shame that our best centre back has to play at left back, however he’s by far our best option there. Ignasi Miquel is another good option, and might get some game time during the busy festive period if we choose to push Vermaelen back into the centre, and have Koscielny fill in at right back.

Apart from the striker problem and the injuries at the back, everything is still improving. Everton may have made their usual slow start to the season, but they’re always a difficult team to beat, so staying strong at the back and claiming the three points was massive, and it put pressure on those around us.

It’s worth saying that the Arsenal 125 celebrations were very well done by the club, and emphasised the class that we all associate with Arsenal Football Club.

We now get a week off ahead of entering the hectic festive period with a trip to Manchester. In my last blog, I said we’d be motivated as a team to end Manchester City’s hopes of going through the season unbeaten, however that’s no longer necessary after Chelsea’s win meant that Monday was Invincibles Day. That result gives hope to the rest of the league that City are catchable, and beatable.

One of the big advantages for us on Sunday will be the absence of Gael Clichy through suspension. The Frenchman is probably one of the few full backs in the league that could match Theo Walcott for pace. With Kolarov also injured, City are also short at full back, so we should definitely look to exploit that with the pace of Walcott and Gervinho.

I imagine Manchester City will also focus on our full backs as weaknesses, and will look to run at Per Mertesacker. Alex Song will have to be at his best to stop players like Aguero floating around the main striker and being able to target Mertesacker.

It’ll be a massive challenge to go to Manchester City and win, but the belief in this team is getting better every week, and I genuinely think we have a chance of getting a result. Carving out clear cut opportunities could be hard, but as we’ve seen, Robin van Persie only needs to sniff the goal and he can find it. We might not have much in reserve behind the Dutchman, however it’s hard to complain when you’ve got the best striker in the league up front. Here’s to him leading the team to glory as we start another 125 years of our great club.