Welcome to another Match preview..Quick story, as a kid i had lots of favorite movies. There was ''Back to the Future'' with Marty Mcfly and that Awesome Jet powered skate board. There was also ''Predator'' with that mean looking Alien who kicked ass with some impressive weaponry. But out of all of them, the ''ROCKY'' series are for me the very best..(mostly rocky 4). I guess to my young impressionable mind back then, seeing a guy getting the daylights beaten out of him, bloodied and demoralized yet still able to somehow win was nothing short of Magic. To me, it was heroic, sensational and i loved it. I remember i'd go to school back then with the rocky theme-song playing in my head, and silently wishing a bully would mess with me. Yeah, those were the days. In Rockys' dictionary, the words ''Odds'' or ''Quit'' didn't exist. And don't get me started with his bloodied face during fights...all epic stuff.
This is basically the way i feel watching Arsenal at this point in time. i'll say this now, i don't remember ever seeing that much blood from Arsenal players in such a short space of time like i have in the past 1 week. First it was Gibbs on Saturday, then it was Koscielny and a bit of Szczesny on Wednesday. Its easy to forget that they are humans and quicker to view them more like gods from Olympus. Immortals hand-picked to specifically dorn our Red and White jerseys. But sadly, they are not. We are almost like the Rocky of the Premiership right now. All the odds imaginable are against us, we are light in every department as a squad, no thanks to injuries/transfer market inactivity. Quality-wise we can hold our own, but you just get the feeling we are one Punch away from the ICU. However, like our Movie hero we must fight on.
So we make the short trip West to face Fulham at the Cottage today. The scene of one of those late backs-to-the-wall victories we pulled off last season. I still recall how difficult it was that afternoon, although we won it wasn't an enjoyable game to watch and if i remember correctly we both finished the game with 10 men but for long periods we had the 1 man advantage but still looked worse-off. Fulham has never been an easy place to visit for us even in the days we had a much stronger squad than we do now. Games there are always close and tightly contested. In addition to the threats of Dimitar Berbatov and Brian Ruiz they have included the pacy Darren Bent. Now he's not a player i rate so much, but he does have this annoying penchant of scoring against us. What they lack in midfield creativity they compensate with a functional display filled with heart and commitment. Former Arsenal trainee, Sidwell is their midfield hatchet man, and was the one sent off last season that led to us picking max. points. Their manager has no marquee style of play but does prefer the 4-4-2 whenever at home. He praised our win on Wednesday, refusing to believe Arsenal are in any form of crises . If anything he highlighted our impressive away record in the Premiership and warned his team to respect the qualities Arsenal possessed. Team-wise we will file out in much the same fashion as we did in Turkey. Bacary Sagna who deputized in central defense when Koscielny was taken off in Turkey will take up the job full time in this game. It will be interesting to see what the manager does in midfield. Will he start Podolski on the left and shift Carzola to Midfield thereby giving Wilshere a rest altogether or will he prefer not to rock the boat. Both are plausible options but i'd stick with Santi as he is slightly the better man at the defensive side of things. Rumours of a Podolski departure are rife, but its unfathomable we'd weaken ourselves any further by letting anyone leave in the state we are in now. Fulham's threats are well known, they managed to win their opening fixture at Sunderland with only 42% possesion. A massive warning for ball huggers like us. Getting goals was a problem for them last season, and i dare say it will still be their Achilles heel this term too. However that doesn't preclude us from being at our efficient best conversion-wise. On Wednesday we got three goals, but large portions of our attacking play still consisted of those trademark sideways passing at the edge of the box, with no-one ready to take on the shooting responsibility. Jenkinson on his day can whip in tasty crosses in from the right-hand side so we will need Giroud at his aerial best should the ground supply be lacking. Speaking of Jenkinson, Fulhams' Alex Kacaniklic is a Left winger that tormented us in the same fixture at the Emirates last season. He was lightening quick and kept delivering dangerous balls into our danger area all day. He will need to be kept quiet and it'll be Jenkinsons' responsibility to do so as legally as possible. We want no more suspensions please! I have found myself wondering where we would be now had we hastily off-loaded Sagna like the rumours were suggesting at the end of last season. Some of his performances admittedly were bad, but just look at how he has re-discovered his best form. His Experience and ability are now the screws holding our back-line together. Fingers crossed, if he comes through again today, it 'll be hard to argue against him being offered a new contract.
Wenger always harps on the importance of the quality of the performance we need to produce prior to any game. He is always quick to say that if the performance is at a high level we win no doubt. I believe this team can produce the kind of quality that can bag 3points, my only fear is the rotten spate of luck with injuries and refs we've had thus far. You just feel the players are carrying enough on their shoulders psychologically that any further misfortune could just be the tipping point before the heads drop irreversibly. We certainly hope nothing of the sort happens. The confidence we will take from a win in this game will be massive in the context of our Tuesday 2nd leg with Fernabache as well as the North London Derby next weekend. On that note i wish the guys the best of luck.. back later
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