Black Cats Fancy Their Chances - Arshavin Starts?
Remember him?
By Boris Mellor
February 20 2009
Black Cats write: "The Black Cats are on a 3 game unbeaten run in the Barclay's Premiership and full of confidence. Sunderland were unlucky not to take all three points in the fixture earlier in the season at the Sunderland Stadium of Light where a wonderstrike from Grant Leadbitter was cancelled out by a Cesc Fabregas goal three minutes into injury time to tie the game up at 1-1."
The Black Cats author goes on to write:
"I believe that we will take the performance in that game and try to build on it at the Emirates. Boss Ricky Sbragia has told his team to be positive and to have a go at the Gunners and I for one can see us causing faltering Arsenal side a few problems.
A lot of Sunderland fans fancy our chances in this one and many will be disappointed if we don't get at least a point as this season the Gunners have become a beatable team."
It just shows how poor things have been when fans of Sunderland (no disrespect intended) think they have a chance at our one time fortress. A team that have never beaten Arsenal in the Premiership in North London. That hope is based on the fact that Arsenal have drawn the last three league games in a row. However Sunderland have not won away from home since 20 December against Hull.
Both these teams are late goal specialists having scored the highest proportion of their league goals in the last 10 minutes; Arsenal have netted 12 of 38, Sunderland eight of 27. The Londoners have kept clean sheets in nine out of 25 league matches; the Wearsiders have failed to score in nine of their 25. Sunderland might be on a 3 game run, but Arsenal are unbeaten in the last 11 in the league.
This Sunderland team rarely wins against top ten opposition. It's like a guard dog with no teeth, it can't bite, but it could give a nasty suck.
This is not Villa, Hull or West Ham, for Black Cat fans to be right about this match Arsenal will have to be at their very worst.
Eduardo raised the morale of players and fans alike in the midweek cup game. It is a pity he is injured for the next week or so. Nonetheless the four goal victory should feed into this game and enough players feel motivated enough to get a much needed three points.
Hopefully Arshavin, whether from the bench, or perhaps even a start, will inspire the team to the same tempo that Eduardo did. Vela and Arshavin could help maintain that momentum and put Arsenal's spluttering season on the road to consistently winning, as against constantly drawing, at last.
Possible Squad: Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Toure, Clichy, Nasri, Denilson, Arshavin, Eboue, Bendtner, Van Persie, Fabianski, Djourou, Gibbs, Wilshere, Vela, Song, Ramsey.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:02:22:10:03:09 by Padre Pio.
Vela is difficult to knock off the ball.
And the way that our players are free to run on the flanks to centre, retianing possessions all the time, withe ven van Perise buzzing zt midfield to win balls.....it si again liek Cardiff amtch if Sunderland dares to coem to attack Arsenal.
Guess not as they will play 10-0-0 all the time to salvage a point...which is a sgood as victory for them.
Wenegr realised that and a cautious approach is suicidal in his race to regain Top-4 spot.
All out attack to win as a draw is as good as a loss to us.
................Almunia
...Sagna....Kolo......Gallas....Gibbs
...........Denilson....Song
...Bendtner.....Nasri.......Vela
..............Van Persie
I will nto play Clichy to give him more time to recover from hsi head injury in readiness for 24-eb against Roma.
Gibbs is good enough to defend against Sunderland.
We need both bendtner and van Persie to be "all-action" running all over mdifield to battle it out to win balls and bendtner box-to-box tracking back.
And when he is exhausted, Arshavin can come in at 65th or 70th minute.
or even start of 2nd half when we are 3-0 up by half-time.
With vela driving into the box, Nasri probing and passing, and Van Persie skills in turning his opponent, I am sure plenty of shooting chances will be created unlike rpeivous game where we hardly create one clear shooting chance in 1st half.
Got a feelign that if Vela plays, he will score this time.
Quote:eduardo
Eboue will play and bring the whole optimistic mood created on Monday to a grinding halt
Yeah, I really hope AW doesn't do that.
If Arshavin doesn't start than then the midfield should be the same as the one against Cardiff, i.e
Nasri-Song-Denilson-Vela
Quote:Rockstaar
it will be a slaughter...sunderland will suffer the same fate as cardiff...hopefully their supporters wont want to mash up the local pubs and cars
no it wont, no we wont and no we wont