The Shape of Things to Come / West Brom Preview

Afternoon Arsenalistas.

So sadly we come to the end of a thoroughly enjoyble week in the Carling Cup, which, it’s worth recapping, saw us humiliate the Totts at their place, and brought about defeats for Chelsea, Man City and most embarrassing of all, Liverpool at home to Northampton Town.

The other big teams found it very hard to replicate the results that Arsenal’s young teams have achieved in this competition in recent years, exposing the weakness in their supposedly stronger squads, and signalling problems to come in the future if this is the cream of their youth development. 

Those teams will still be reliant on their chequebooks in 5 years time, while our first team could well contain Wilshere, Gibbs, Lansbury, JET, and Frimpong, having all graduated through our academy.

The future is extremely bright, and when you figure in our improving financial situation, it looks even more dazzling.  A new set of financial results have been announced today, for those who are that way inclined.  The headlines to my layman’s eye are the repayment of £130m of debt in the last year, and the reduction of our net debt to just £136m.  Factor in the property side of the business which is now making profit, and could we be completely debt free this time next year?

Back to playing matters though, I would like to think that Wojciech Szczesny’s name will be featuring on the Arsenal team sheet in 5 years as well, but after his comments this week that is in some doubt.  We’ve all heard about the fabled talent of the young Pole, but his performances have all come a Brentford down in League 1, and opportunities while at Arsenal have been few and far between.

Clearly Szczesny is frustrated by this, and the fact that he is apparently 4th choice goalkeeper behind Almunia, Fabianski and Mannone.  For all the talk in the summer that order hasn’t changed at all, He hasn’t moved up, he hasn’t been sent back out on loan, and as a result he has been scrabbling around for playing time in the reserves and youth teams. 

It’s not an ideal situation at all for him or the club, and we all know what happens when highly rated players in the last year of their contract begin to feel disaffected.

That’ll be a headache for Wenger.  Does he do what he can to keep Szczesny happy, at the expense of Fabianski and Mannone?  You imagine having backed Fabianski for this long he won’t change tack now, and I can see Szczesny flirting with contract offers from other clubs come the end of this season.

West Brom Preview

On to more pressing matters though, and attention turns back to the Premier League tomorrow, with a home game against West Brom.  At the Emirates we should be looking to beat teams like West Brom, and beat them well.

Arsene won’t have Vermaelen back though, another return date missed by the Belgian, and Diaby, Rosicky and Eboue are doubtful.  Gibbs joins Cesc, Walcott, van Persie, Bendtner and Ramsey on the (slightly) longer term injury list.  Chuck in Frimpong and that’s as many as 11 players injured right now.  Same old Arsenal.

That said though I think this team has enough to pull off a handsome victory tomorrow:

Almunia

Sagna – Squillaci – Koscielny – Clichy

Wilshere – Song – Nasri

Vela – Chamakh – Arshavin

I’m going to keep banging the drum about Vela, despite not shining at WHL on Tuesday when he was asked to lead the line from the start, I think he can do the business in a support role at home against a newly promoted team, and the more chances he gets at this stage in his career the better he’s going to get.  I would start him tomorrow cutting in from the right against a suspect defence, he could cause havoc for them.

Arshavin continues to be an enigma, he was effective when he came on against the Totts, creating the two penalties from his passes, and scoring the fourth, but go back to Sunderland and he was a bit of a liability.  Without Cesc in the team he probably has to start though.  I would move Nasri back to be the creative spark in midfield to make room for Arshavin and Vela.

If Diaby is deemed fit though, I suspect he will start, and Nasri will go wide right, pushing out Vela.  Ditto if Eboue is fit, he could well replace Vela on the right.

The crystal ball says we are in for another enjoyable day, I’ll go for 5 – 1 to Arsenal, to include a Chamakh brace.

Thoughts?