Does Arsene Wenger really fancy playing Chelsea in Cardiff ?
I wonder.
He’s played mostly squad players and kids and he’ll do the same against Spurs in tonight’s second leg of the Carling Cup semi-final.
Gilberto will be back and this Carling game will tune him up for Middlesbrough, a game Arsenal need to win because Liverpool have just won 2-1 at West Ham. They are now two points behind Chelsea.
Arsenal have missed Gilberto’s experience, his composure. If he’d been playing against Bolton I don’t think Kevin Nolan would have scored that goal.
Also, Arsenal have missed the Brazilian’s new-found firepower.
The manager will be glad to have Gilberto Silva back in action. He has been suspended, not injured, so he’s been doing more or less the same training that all the other players have been doing, while missing three games for retaliating against Robbie Savage.
So don’t be surprised if Goalberto scores tonight. Probable teams :
ARSENAL : Almunia — Hoyte, Touré, Senderos, Traoré — Walcott, Gilberto Silva, Diaby, Denilson — Aliadière, Adebayor.
TOTTENHAM : Robinson — Chimbonda, Dawson, Rocha, Assou-Ekotto — Lennon, Zokora, Jenas, Malbranque — Defoe, Keane.
Can Arsenal play without Fabregas ?
Well, every Gooner will have his own views on that subject.
The match kicks off with the score at 2-2 and so the first question to ask is : Are those away goals going to be important ?
My guess is : no. Because this game will not finish 0-0 or 1-1.
But if his first team was playing, Arsene would think this game was easier to win than the Bolton replay at the Reebok.
However, he has a thin squad, too many injuries, and too many games too close together.
He needs Hleb, Gallas and van Persie now. But he doesn’t have them available.
Spurs are still without Ledley King and will field new centreback Ricardo Rocha, who made his debut in their 3-1 win over Southend in the fourth round of the FA Cup. After two training sessions with Spurs, he was thrown in and apparently played well. So it will be interesting to see how Rocha does against Adebayor and Aliadiere.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy said that the January window was a “stressful” time of year for him. When I mentioned this to Mark Jacob, he said, “He’s usually in Florida !”
ALMUNIA is always a worry, of course.
He’s 29 and it’s like watching one of those horizontal British heavyweights, a big guy with a glass jaw. One left hook and you know the fight’s over. With him, you worry about that one cross, one shot, one mistake. He wasn’t up to it in Paris and he will never will be.
As I’ve said before, Almunia is a clown who should not be at Arsenal. Serious clubs have a good No.2 keeper.
Talking of the noble art of self-defence, last year I started to see a lot more boxing training at my gym.
Guys and girls throwing combinations at trainers, and kick-boxing girls whacking pads held by trainers. Last week when I went to start my stretches one of my pals, who works there, was having his fists taped up by a boxing trainer who put blue Everlast gloves on him.
We talked for a few seconds about some famous heavyweights and the trainer said the hardest puncher was Earnie Shavers. Then the trainer asked if I wanted to come into the studio and watch him coach my friend, so I did, and it was interesting.
Today, skimming through a Sky magazine, I saw a feature on Earnie Shavers, who now works as a greeter at Yeats’s Wine Lodge in Liverpool.
Shavers fought Muhammad Ali in 1977 and hurt him seriously in Round 2, but Ali didn’t quite go down. Ali had a great chin, not a glass chin.
Ali later admitted, “Earnie Shavers hit me so hard, he shook my kinfolk back in Africa.”