Monday Linkfest – Moscow Preview

We’re in Russia today warming up for tomorrow’s match against CSKA Moscow. CSKA Moscow are currently undefeated in Cup play but shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for us. The bigger problem will be the weather. We’ll be seeing some leg warmers and long sleeves, that’s for sure.

Denilson is making the trip with the squad, no doubt due to the recent injury issues. I don’t know that we will see him on the pitch unless it’s late and we’ve clearly secured the win, but I’ve been wrong before. However, travelling to Moscow with the team will be great experience for him no doubt. He’s been mopping up in the reserves so Arsene must feel like he’s almost ready.

I suspect that we’ll see a pretty similar squad starting for this match. Adebayor over VP11 up front makes more sense in this game as it is likely to be more physical. Arsene Wenger is quite confident and has issued a statement on the match. Let’s keep our winning streak going!

CSKA Manager Valery Gazzaev has stated that Arsenal should have been champions last year. Hey I really like this guy! I think I have a new second favorite manager, even though I know nothing of the man. Hopefully he’ll let us run riot on his team tomorrow too!

Adebayor explains on video why he needed a goal so badly, and how fantastic Thierry Henry is for giving it to him. True enough. If you don’t have an Arsenal TV Online subscription, you are kidding yourself. It’s cheap, they have all the press conferences available, player interviews are frequent, and they also have a catalogue of seasons going back to the late 90′s with a fantastic search feature to find the goal or game you want to see. Do it.

And here’s a bit of loan news for the team. Arturo Lupoli scored a fantastic goal for Derby as they fell to a 10-man Plymouth in the Championship League. (The Championship League is right under the Premiership, so teams are promoted and relegated between the two. I need to write an article about this for my American audience.) Stokes also put one away for Falkirk.

What’s the point of providing a wallpaper for a match in only 3 sizes, with a horribly grainy photo? I do plan on having some wallpapers of my own, as I’m quite keen with the Photoshop, so stay tuned for that. Arsenal.com, you and I have been friends for a long time, and I don’t want that to change, but you will soon fear my wallpaper kung-fu.

Here’s a bit about our chum Gael Clichy and how he feels about returning to match play. I’m glad he is excited and wants to prove himself. His biggest hurdle? Not getting injured again. It’s like the guy is made out of glass. Don’t take that the wrong way though Gael, you know we love you.

An old England skipper by the name of Terry Butcher is acting like a giant jerk-face by once again talking about Wenger and the England squad. I think Wenger has made it quite clear that he doesn’t want to coach the English team and that he detests International football of all forms. From that you could even write off France as a potentially coaching opportunity for him. So shut your trap Butcher. Shut it.

Cech’s injury problems which I previously discussed are still fresh in the mind. Hunt has now come out to proclaim his innocence in that he attempted not to harm the keeper. Fine. You didn’t mean to harm him. But you came running in like a bat out of hell on a keeper who was on the ground, in possession of the ball. Maybe you didn’t mean to depress his skull, but you should have avoided it a bit better than that. You pull that kind of crap on Lehmann and you and I are going to have a serious problem.

CaughtOffSide has a great new article and comment contribution called ‘Five things we learned this weekend’. There are some interesting comments in there, you should take a gander.

Come on you gunners!