Our Twitter players have been having fun on the flight to Newcastle this afternoon by snapping each other in various states of being in the land of nod – although Cesc is very much awake in his pic. Again, it shows great togetherness and team spirit. Jack Wilshere, RVP and Cesc were at it with their mobile phone cameras and we print the evidence here.
On to the game and our players are stuck by a fresh plague of injuries. Samir Nasri pulled up against Huddersfield, and has been ruled out for around 3 weeks. Lukasz Fabianski also suffered a bizarre injury in training, leaving our Polish goalkeeper (the older one) needing surgery which has ruled him out for the rest of the season. On a less drastic note, Alex Song has been left out of the squad travelling up to Newcastle, due to injury – but promisingly, he should be back for the Wolves game next Saturday.
Despite the fact that we still have the luxury of filling our midfield with players such as Fabregas, Walcott, Wilshere, Diaby, Rosicky and Arshavin (okay, the last 3 are debatable), I’m sure I’m not the only one that has growing feelings of concern.
Like I have previously stated, the next 2 months will decide where the trophies end up. For me, we need to get maximum points in every league game from now on, if we are to win the title. We should also expect the worst and assume that Manchester United are going to drop very few points this season. Naturally, with their recent £70m investments, Chelsea will become a force again and the league will become a 3-horse race again, in my opinion.
Different players are motivated from different things. Some are motivated by being set difficult goals, while others give up. However, I’m sure that Wenger only buys players that believe in the high ambitions he has set for the club.
Instinctively, if Wenger told our players to assume that United will drop very, very few points, the ones that really want to win the league will try their best every game – and more! While the others would crack under the pressure, and slowly usher an easy way out.
Our team is good enough to win the league. And any player that doesn’t believe that, shouldn’t be in our team. Every player knows that Arsenal is one of the most ambitious clubs in the world, with one of the most ambitious managers in the world, and if they haven’t adopted the same belief, then they simply shouldn’t play for us.
In hindsight, perhaps we should have signed someone last month. But I’m sure you’ll agree that hindsight is a wonderfully easy thing. On transfer deadline day, I accepted that we weren’t going to buy anyone, but I still believed our squad was good enough to win the title – and my opinions haven’t changed.
Despite the injuries we’ve had recently, I fully believe we can win the league. But from what we’ve all seen in the past, supporters will expect more setbacks to come – I don’t think I’ll ever see Robin van Persie see out a full season, avoiding a long-term injury!
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