By Myles Palmer
Can’t wait for the Man United game at Old Trafford.
I know it’s silly to think about that now. Pros take football one game at a time and so should fans and writers.
Take each game as it comes and you won’t go too far wrong.
Newcastle will not be easy, even with Gary Speed now injured, and Deportivo La Coruna looks like the biggest challenge of the season so far.
But Sir Alex has been moaning so much this week that I keep thinking about the United game.
Moaning about the FA disciplinary delay, about Thierry Henry. Moaning about Vieira’s alleged elbows.
Make up your mind, Alex. You said Vieira was a great player when you tried to sign him in the summer. Now you reckon he is a villain?
The main reason you’re bitching so much is that the title race is now out of your hands. You know that if Arsenal win all their games they will be champions.
You hate that because you are not in control.That’s why you’re so annoyed and frustrated. That’s why you’re
moaning – and why you will continue to moan.
We are waiting to hear more anti-Arsenal rhetoric from you in the next few weeks.The more you whinge, the happier we will be.
Because you can’t do anything, you can only win your games and hope Arsenal lose.
The only match you can influence will be the United-Arsenal game.And the way Wenger’s wonders are playing right now – fast, fluent, deadly around the box – I strongly fancy Arsenal to win up there.
What about tomorrow’s FA Cup quarter-final at Newcastle?
A massive, massive game for Newcastle,who have just lost to 2-0 to Arsenal and 3-0 to Liverpool in the league.
This is Bobby Robson’s FA Cup Final, almost. A must-win game.If they win they are good enough to win the FA Cup.
So Newcastle will be very, very pumped up.
Shearer will be trying every trick, Dabizas will want revenge for being turned inside out by Bergkamp, Shay Given will be making preposterously brave leaps right, left and centre.
It should be a highly entertaining spectacle for BBC viewers at 5.30 tomorrow.
Lovely to see Wiltord get a standing ovation when he was subbed in the Derby game.
He is playing for his Arsenal future.
He wants to stay and he wants to convince everybody, especially the manager, that he should stay.
So Wiltord ran his guts out. He will need to run his guts out again tomorrow.
If Arsenal are going to win, every player will have to go for it and forget about Deportivo for 90 minutes.
Lauren may move into the right side of midfield, his best position. Juan might be at left back.
On the other hand, with Parlour suffering an ankle injury in training, Freddie Ljungberg might come back on the right, with Lauren staying at left back against Solano, Newcastle’s most creative player.
Another permutation could be Jeffers up front with Wiltord on the right.
Seventeen games unbeaten should become eighteen.
It could be a 1-1 draw but I believe Arsenal will shade it because Pires and Bergkamp are the hottest players in England at the moment.Those two will be the difference.
If you loook at form, and you look at the squads,and who is available, this game should NOT be close. Arsenal should walk it 3-1.
But all week I’ve had a feeling it will be a win by the odd goal.
8th March 2002.