Please Arsene, persist with Eduardo

I must apologise; three and a half days between blog posts is unacceptable.

Oh dear…In my defence, though, things have been insanely busy. I mentioned on the blog a few weeks ago that I just moved into a new, three-bedroom house with a couple of mates and Saturday night was our housewarming. We decided to have a hippie-themed party, mostly because it allowed us to play Hendrix and Zeppelin all night, and it took all of Saturday to set up and all of Sunday (and then some) to clean up. It was a rip-roaring success (see picture for evidence) but it did mean that I had to make sacrifices – and that meant missing out on Arsenal’s win over Bolton and indeed, an inability to blog in the party’s aftermath. Unlike Arseblogger, I’ve not yet mastered the skill of hammering out top-quality blog posts whilst recovering from a hangover.

But now it is Tuesday night in Australia and I’m about as fresh as I’m ever going to be. The only knowledge I have of Arsenal’s weekend came from various Arsenal blogs and the highlights from Arsenal TV. By all reports it was not a great performance, but three points is three points, and if the boys can stay at the top of the table with a game in hand until the clash with Manchester United then I think it will give them all the confidence they need to keep plugging along.

William Gallas loves life againArsenal news round-up

To catch up on the news very briefly I’ve decided to throw everything into bullet points:

William Gallas has been talking about how much he loves playing for Arsenal at the moment. I think that’s great and I hope he can stay fit for as long as possible because if he and Kolo Toure can get their partnership going it would solidify one of the weaker areas of the Arsenal team.

Speaking about Toure, he has warned the rest of the team against becoming complacent about their great start to the season. It was great to see Toure finally grab a goal from long-range, especially after coming so close against Sunderland, and as per usual he’s spot on with his comments. If Arsenal’s young team can hold it together mentally then I think they stand every chance of coming out on top at the end of May.

Robin van Persie’s knee injury is not as bad as expected, turning out to be medial rather than a cruciate ligament damage, but he’ll still be out for four to six weeks. Going by the Arsenal medical staff’s track record, he’ll probably be out for eight.

Lassana Diarra has spoken of his frustration of not playing much football with Arsenal. On one hand he makes a very good point, but on the other hand it’s not like he didn’t know Mathieu Flamini, Gilberto Silva, Denilson, Abou Diaby and Cesc Fabregas were already at the club. I hope he gets a chance because the general feeling around the football world is that he could be top, top player.

I hope Wenger persists with EduardoSlavia preview

The fixture list has been kind to Arsenal of late and it continues later today with another relatively straightforward clash, this time at home to Slavia Prague in the Champions League. It wasn’t so long ago that Arsene Wenger’s side comfortably took care of Slavia’s city rivals Sparta in the qualifiers and I can see another victory in the bag. Doubters may point to the tough time that Arsenal had against Steaua Bucharest as a more accurate reflection of what Wenger’s side may face but at the end of the day anything less than three points would be a disappointment. Czech journalist Karel Haring has suggested that Slavia will be a much tougher proposition than Sparta was you might find him a little hard to trust because he still believes Emmanuel Eboue is “a really good right back”. I can only wonder what he’ll say when he sees Bacary Sagna play.

There are some rumours emerging about what Wenger might do with the starting lineup against Sparta. A couple of people commented on the last blog post that the manager will playing Theo Walcott up front alongside Adebayor after some smart performances off the bench. Personally I will be hoping that Wenger persists with the Eduardo da Silva-Adebayor combination. While I don’t doubt that Walcott could have an impact up front I just feel that the Eduardo-Adebayor pairing has the potential to click into place very quickly and I feel that this is exactly what is required with big games against Liverpool and Manchester United on the horizon. The general feeling from Saturday’s match was that Eduardo and Adebayor did not work well together but on all the previous occasions that I have seen them play that could not be further from the truth. As I said, hopefully they will start again tomorrow and one or both of them can get on the scoresheet.

Three more points in the Champions League will virtually ensure qualification and allow Wenger to experiment with some other players in the remaining grou games. Baring in mind the lack of opportunities that players like Gilberto Silva, Denilson, Lukasz Fabianski, Justin Hoyte and Nicklas Bendtner are getting this will certainly be a good thing. Just for the record I’m going for a 2-0 win and will be throwing down a fiver on Eduardo to open the scoring.

What do you think?

Have your say on Arsenal’s match with Slavia Prague by leaving a comment.Идея за подарък

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Comments

  1. SF – i must disagree with you because Eduardo had his chance against Bolton, Walcott gets a chance now! If hew performs well then keep him in the squad for POOL if not but Eduardo back!

  2. Jay – For a squad that has been based on consistency, in terms of keeping the same players week in, week out, I would prefer Eduardo to play. He has the ability. One game does not make or break a player. If you had gone by this mentality then Walcott would probably not even be on the bench based on some of his performances earlier in the season. The potential that an Adebayor-Eduardo partnership has is excellent and I will be hoping it continues.

  3. Good players get in sqaud. The last couple of games Eduardo hasn’t played well whereas Walcott has been great. I can feel another big debate starting.

  4. Indeed. I don’t understand the statement: “the last couple of games Eduardo hasn’t played well”. He hasn’t really started many games apart from the Bolton one. Although Theo has done well it’s because his impact has come at a time when the defence is tired. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled with what he is doing, but to have the mentality that Walcott should play, and if he plays poorly Eduardo should come back in is questionable. Liverpool have shown that rotation just doesn’t work and throwing players around like that upsets the balance. If anything, drop Eboue for Walcott and keep Eduardo up front. Playing Walcott up front would be a big gamble in my opinion.

  5. i dont see Walcott making an impact from the start in big games,so on that note i would start with Da Silva,people say Silva hasnt performed on the few times he has played but considerin he has those two goals already and the time taken to recover from injury i still think the best of Da Silva is jus round the corner.there is no way Wenger will start with Walcott against Pool so i think put Da Silva in and maybe 90 mins will give Ade-Dudu some much needed time to blend

  6. Exactly, casicky. Remember earlier in the season a lot of people were wanting an Adebayor-Eduardo partnership even over Robin van Persie playing? Before van Persie hit top form? Why has that attitude towards Eduardo changed so substantially on one performance?

  7. Eduardo is going to be a top player for Arsenal, u wait and see. When he settles into the English Premiership and the Arsenal way of football, u watch the boy go. From what i’ve seen I rate him very highly and he is a typical Wenger signing. He is class, just give him time!

  8. congrats on new accomdation!!,hoping that soccer will be a big winner here in sa bef4 2010,like the way the bokke won just brought all 4 races together.walcott has been putting superb run’s in last few games, we wouldn’t want the fellow 2 put his head down, if his performances has been gud enough to earn a spot in the 1st 11,i still would like bayor- eduardo combo, and behind them walcott has right wing.Iwish I could watch it on satelite, becoz on national tv, they are bais, prefer to show man then arsenal. real ….hole!!!, enjoy the match guys

  9. Mr spanish fry sir… we´re at home tonight! just outta curiosity are you the fella to the right in the photo?

  10. I am not going to comment until tomorrow, i know walcott will do well and AW has announced that Theo will start. I wil comment on his performaqnce tomorrow but personally im glad he is starting.

  11. me to jay, i just hope he makes the most of it. we´ve heard all season long how he is exceptional in training now all he needs to do is transfer it to the pitch… COME ON YOU REEEEEEDDDDDDDDSSSSSSSSSSS

  12. Jesus wept 7-0!!! That’s what we need to be in the Premier League, ruthless, cut throat, teams that are relegation fodder need to be put to sword and swiftly no messing about.

    Well done lads. 🙂

  13. That was a surprise. Walcott did get his start and did exceptionally well. All I can say is, well done.

    Tubes – We are/were indeed at home. My mistake. And no, I’m not the guy on the right. I’m actually the berk in the middle. Go figure…

  14. WALCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTT !!!!!

    SF – i can’t believe they showed the rangers/barca game on sbs over this 🙁 !!!!

  15. Asenal 7 Slavia 0.What can I say close to perfection. Theo Has arrived .I’ve been waiting for this to happen. As usual Hleb and Fabregas were awesome . But the plus point is Theo Walcott .the first 20 minutes his positioning was unsure but after his first goal all changed and he came more into the game.We all know with confidence come the goals. As I mentioned before his finishing is very much like Thierry Henry but I have to say I’ve watched him when he was at Southampton as a 16 year old even then he reminded me of Thierry. It was all there, ready to come out. And he came to the right place. I can finally see it happening. Adebayor did Ok. His finishing once again let him down and wasn’t happy with himself. One word for Bendtner “Scary”. He frightened the hell out those Slavia defenders. All in all. Fantastic game.
    One more thing lehman or I should say” lame man” needs to be shipped out of Arsenal and quickly. He’s been saying some things about Arsene to the German press we don’t need that at the moment. As for Almunia he made 2 very good saves. He will always be a number 2 . I would still say we need a top goalkeeper in January.

  16. Tom – In retrospect, it would have been great to see the Arsenal game live on SBS. On paper, Rangers-Barcelona looked a top class match so in a way it’s unfortunate it turned out the way it did.

    A lot of people are getting carried away with Walcott, but as you said Le gunner, Hleb was outstanding. He has really come along this season and it’s great to see.

  17. Wassup people? i agree with you SF on the Eduardo-Adebayor combination..from yesterdays game, wallcot seemed to outshine both adebayor and eduardo(previous performance) but Praha isn’t by any chance comparable to Liverpool by any chance. i think eduardo should play the saturdays game for sure… CHEERS!

  18. Arsenal to their credit are putting the doubters to shame!I love Arsenal,another well deserved victory.”’Who said we will struggle without Van Persie”””
    Congrats!!!!!!!

  19. knightman – All I want is consistency. If Walcott continues to play I don’t really mind, I just feel that continuity of the starting team is important and it should only really be changed if players or injured or need a rest. I’m a little bit disappointed that Eduardo didn’t feature against Slavia Prague but Wenger must have his reasons. Perhaps he feels he is adapting a little bit slower than expected, or perhaps he really wants to use the element of surprise against Liverpool.

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