Here we go. Here comes the Matchday which would seal (or postpone) our fates in the Champions League, so make no mistake it’s an important one.
Arsenal fans crave for the Premier League (and rightly so), but everyone knows that the Champions League is the most difficult trophy to get, and the most prestigious to savour. For us, to stay alive in such a competition, the equation is simple – win today, hope Bayern do us a rather easy favour, and defeat Olympiacos by more than a goal.
I don’t know about you, but that seems doable to me. It’s certainly easier than overturning a 4-0 deficit against AC Milan, or a 3-1 setback against Bayern. And make no mistake, if you don’t have faith in your team to defeat Dinamo Zagreb and Olympiacos, there’s no chance that same perceived team can win the league.
We shouldn’t treat this as a dead rubber. We shouldn’t be too casual or too leisurely (although we do tend to play well, when not under pressure). The reality is, we’re not nearly in danger of elimination as we’re making it out to be. Our plight is not a molehill, but it’s certainly not a mountain either.
We can fix this. Arsene Wenger should play his strongest possible XI tonight. If it means overplaying Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla I’ll have to live with that, although I had preferred they were rested on Saturday (perhaps not Aaron Ramsey though, he’s just back). Considering our squad and the resources Wenger has, competing in England and Europe should be an expectation. Putting all our eggs in one Premier League basket is too huge a risk, and too less an ambition.
Play the right tactics, take the game seriously, hope for the stars to align our way and even if we fail, at least we’d bow out with some pride. Come on Arsenal.
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Elsewhere, Francis Coquelin’s injury has oh-so predictable turned into something nasty, with reports suggesting he could be out till February. Wear your Arsenal rose-tinted spectacles, and that reads somewhere around April.
I think it’s obvious we need to sign a defensive midfielder as soon as possible. I was foolish enough to support Wenger’s gamble of not buying anyone in the summer, a summer when Morgan Schneiderlin, Arturo Vidal and Sami Khedira switched clubs. Mikel Arteta and Mathieu Flamini are both injury prone and past it. All they’ve proven is that they’re not even fit to be second/third choice, which really signifies game over for their Arsenal careers.
You don’t guarantee Coquelin a starting place in the berth out of sentiment, period. I’m very grateful for his resurrection and his fairy-tale rise to the top of the deck, but let’s not forget this is Arsenal. A club where everyone is supposed to fight for their place, and push themselves on. Gone are the days when we’re reliant on a few key men, with substandard backups to fill their slots after they’re overplayed into oblivion. If Coquelin wants to stay in this club, he needs to fight it out with someone better than Arteta. And Wenger should be the one to make sure that atmosphere of healthy competition is created.
Till tomorrow, hopefully.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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