IF THE Arsenal players think fourth place has gone, and they don’t want to get nasty injuries like Diaby and Rooney, they may not perform at Manchester City on Thursday night.
If Man City is a 1-1 draw, Wigan becomes irrelevant, and Arsenal can concentrate on Barcelona, the biggest game of the season.
If you are approaching the biggest game in Arsenal’s history, it overshadows your other games. It has to.
I’ve become a little bit dubious about the team passing this particular test, since Man City are far better than Sunderland and Stuart Pearce is saying that Arsenal is a great last game of the year at home.
Belligerent Georgios Samaras is a striker who could really blossom next season.
The Greek is lively, good in the air, quick enough, and knocks defenders about.But he has been carrying an injury recently.
Adebayor cost a similar fee and we can compare the two on Sky Sports 1 on Thursday night.
Darius Vassell is creative and can do great things, but his confidence is wafer-thin.
Mountainous boy wonder Micah Richards, 17, is the kind of player Arsenal’s academy should be producing.
LAST NIGHT Shaun Wright-Phillips struggled for Chelsea’s weakened team at Blackburn, who beat them 1-0 with a tiny header by Steven Reid from a Robbie Savage free-kick.
Ref Steve Bennett refused Chelsea three penalties. Crespo’s might have been a dive, but Lampard’s was a clear trip in the box.
It was quite a good end-of-season game but I found myself thinking about SWP and the stories I heard after he moved from Man City to Chelsea.
Allegedly, Ian Wright told his stepson, “Arsene can’t sign you this summer, but he can sign you next summer, so sit tight for one more season at City.”
Allegedly, at a time when Stuart Pearce was confident of keeping Shaun for 2005-2006, the winger’s attitude changed overnight following a call from Sven, who told him, “I want you at a bigger club.”
Allegedly, it was Peter Kenyon who signed Shaun, not Mourinho, who told Kenyon, “I won’t play him.”
CLEARLY, SWP is at the wrong club.
He was improving at City, where Pearce gradually realised that he cannot be coached. There was a period when they were shouting instructions to Shaun from the bench and when they did that he got worse and worse.
With Shaun, you just need to say : “Go out and play, son. Don’t worry about losing the ball.”
And Mourinho will never say that.
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UPDATE : Adebayor is out with a sinus infection.
Squad to travel : Lehmann, Eboue, Toure, Campbell, Cole, Pires, Gilberto, Ljungberg, Fabregas, Van Persie, Henry, Djourou, Larsson, Reyes, Bendtner, Almunia.