The North Bank – “It’s got va-va-voom” (An Arsenal blog)

This Sunday sees us take on Chavski, at Stamford Bridge, in what is already looking like it will be a big game in terms of our title ambitions. If we win, then we pull back to within a point of the leaders. Lose and we fall seven points behind them. While seven points is by no means an insurmountable gap to close over the course of the subsequent thirty-one games, but it would not a good position to be in after only seven games. Therefore to get a least a draw is very important.

The team is  going to have to put in a true team performance. We need all of our players to work together and each player will have to make sure that they do the jobs that they are picked to do. Alex Song is going to have to make sure that he is disciplined and just sits in midfield in his defensive midfielder role. He needs to forget about rushing forward to try and get a goal, we have attacking midfielders that do that job well. Song needs to be disciplined and to make sure that he acts as a shield for our defence.

Regardless of whether it is Fabianski or Almunia in goal, we need our defence and midfield to offer adequate protection to our goalkeeper. If the keeper gets no protection, then that will greatly increase the chance of a calamitous error happening.

There are big question marks over the fitness of Fabregas, who will undergo a test tomorrow in order to leave the decision on whether or not he can play as late as possible. It’s looking like the boss is going to have to decide if he is willing to take a gamble on what is clearly not a 100% fit Fabregas. Perhaps with an international break coming up, it may make such a gamble a bit more attractive as we won’t play again until the game at home to Birmingham on Saturday, 16th.

Vermaelen is set to miss out again, but should return for the visit of Birmingham. Bendtner is set to be available for selection after the international break, while Aaron Ramey’s recovery is progressing very well. That’s great news and hopefully he can get some playing time under his belt before Christmas. Diaby is touch and go to be fully fit for Sunday, but he will be involved in the match day squad.

England continue to dick around our young players with the news that Wilshere is tipped to play for both the u21s and senior squad during this international break. Now, I have no problems with him playing for the u21s, if he isn’t a member of the senior squad. However, having called him up for the seniors, that is where he should stay. They did a similar thing to Walcott and sent him back to us injured. Fingers crossed that they don’t break Wilshere, too. Funny how they moan that Arsenal don’t produce enough English players, yet do their best to wear out any young English players that we have, or dick them around by yo-yoing them between the two squads.

Our record against the big teams last season was really poor and that it something that we must look to rectify this year if we are to have serious ambitions of winning the title, starting on Sunday.

The Goon Blog wrote a good piece on the future of commercial revenue at the club and is well worth checking out if you haven’t already. Likewise, The Swiss Ramble also wrote a very good article discussing Arsenal’s finances. Read it. Before reading the latter, bear in mind that Man Shitty have just announced lossed of £121m and that their wages now exceed their turnover. Their wages exceed their turnover! That’s the clearest example that you will find of financial doping. Scandalous. Man Shitty’s income was £125m and their wage bill was £133m. That’s just mental.

That’s about all that I have. Oh, don’t forget to have a bit of a chuckle at the Spuds trying to up sticks and move to the Olympic stadium over in east London. At least if they move there they will have a small chance of becoming the biggest club in their area, maybe.

That’s all for today. Take it easy.