Tottenham Hotspur (The Emirates Stadium)
Carling Cup Semi Final (1st Leg)
Wednesday 9th January 2008
Kick Off: 7.45pm – Live On Sky Sports 1

Well if there’s one thing we know about a North London Derby it’s the fact that there’s always goals.

It’s mainly because Arsenal can score against any team, and the that Spurs can’t defend and they have Paul Robinson in goal.

And tonight will see Djourou and Senderos at central defence for the first time this season. I could make a joke here about Swiss Rolls but that would be too obvious, and quite frankly pretty sad. Armard Traore will play at left-back where he has impressed in the Carling Cup. I have noticed that he tries to take on players in his own half though far too much when a simple pass is the easier option. Anyone else noticed this?

Lukasz Fabianski will be in goal as well so it will be a pretty inexperienced defence going against Spurs’ 1st team, who will probably still be p*ssed off about what happened the last time they came to the Emirates. So you can be sure they’ll be up for tonight.

And because Berbatov will be trying to impress the bigger clubs so he can move in January you can expect a performance from him.

Van Persie has just returned from injury but looks to start on the bench, so it looks like Eduardo could be playing upfront with Bendtner once again – which seems to be a partnership both players like. Theo, Denilson and Diaby have been tipped to start as well so you can see an explosive, high-tempo game tonight with a hell of a lot of pace all over the pitch.

So what are your predictions for tonight?

After all that, I’ve probably just jinxed the game to end 0-0!

Everton (Goodison Park)
Saturday 29th December 2007
Kick Off: 5.15pm – Live On Setanta Sports 1

Tomorrow Arsenal will travel up to another cold North West away day and face Everton, who are currently in a rich vain of form of late.

They have only lost one of their last nine Premier League fixtures, and that was only because Steven Pienaar had a rush of blood and committed a simply crazy ‘tackle’ on Ryan Giggs with only minutes remaining.

The fact is Everton are going to be incredibly tough to beat tomorrow, which is what Arsenal will need to keep the pressure on Manchester United at the top. Don’t forget, this Everton side came from behind at Old Trafford, and did the same at Stamford Bridge.

Arsenal will need a performance similar to those earlier on in the season.

Unfortunately, we haven’t reached our peak in terms of an attacking performance enough in December.

The only decent game we’ve had in December was the Chelsea game at home, where we looked to have our old rhythm back with Hleb, Fabregas and Flamini returning. And then there was the first half at Villa Park.

Against Pompy, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Spurs we’ve looked tired.

Of course, it has been a demanding schedule on the players but to win the league or at least fight for it teams have to overcome this hurdle. United still keep managing to win matches, albeit it you could argue easier fixtures – but nevertheless they get the three points.

I have commented on the poor form of Arsenal and against Spurs it was encouraging that they managed to win a game without playing particuarly well, but the problem we have is against Newcastle, Pompy and Boro we’ve played badly but failed to win those games. And call me pessimistic but I just can’t see Arsenal going out and out-performing Everton tomorrow, simply because Everton know how to make the game a dogfight and David Moyles will have no problems if he can get a result by forcing Arsenal out of the game.

And if a team like Pompy want to defend for 90 minutes then you can expect the same from Everton too.

So this is going to be an intriguing encounter.

We keep on saying it but on these tough away games Arsenal need to score, and need to score early. That’s the only way the other team will come out and give Arsenal space to play their football.

So the question is will Everton come out and play or defend in numbers?

I don’t think you can expect anything more than the latter, so Arsenal will have to dig deep yet again and try to steal the 3 points.

Chelsea (The Emirates Stadium)
Sunday 16th December, 2007
Kick off: 4pm – Live On Sky Sports 1

So this weekend marks another Grand Slam Sunday.

If you didn’t know what a Grand Slam Sunday was, it’s a term coined by Sky Sports for when the top four play in the same day against each other. If you’ve got Digital TV then you’ll know what all the hype is all about.

And funnily enough, in recent times our record in Grand Slam Sundays is pretty good.

Last season’s first GSS (I can’t be arsed typing Grand Slam Sunday anymore) was Manchester United v Arsenal and Chelsea v Liverpool on the 17th of September, 2006. Chelsea beat Liverpool thanks to a Didier Drogba goal in the lunchtime kick off, and thanks to Adebayor’s goal and Cesc’s magic, Arsenal won against the odds at Old Trafford against a United side who were at that point flying at the top of the league.

And in the second GSS (21st January 2007), Robin van Persie and Thierry Henry’s late, late show overcame United at the Emirates, while Hansel from Zoolander and Jermaine Pennant’s goals were enough to beat Chelsea at Anfield.

Just like the first Manchester United game, no-one was giving us a chance.

And the same can be said for this Sunday with Arsenal struggling for form, without our big name players and a huge chunk of our midfield missing.

The 4 games against Sevilla, Aston Vanilla (2nd half), Newcastle and Boro hasn’t been of the same standard as earlier in the season. I mentioned last week that we can’t really expect Arsenal to keep up the same kind of form and we were going to hit a rough patch sooner or later, especially with injuries to key players.

Well now is to end that run.

Meanwhile, Chelsea have almost crept up the league under the radar. Winning comfortably and without setting the world on fire, there seems to be a conspicuous lack of media attention on Chelsea on the whole. Is this a sign of things to come under the post-Mourinho era? We’ll have to wait and see.

So who is the favourite going into the game?

Well it will be interesting to see who the bookies fancy, and I can’t really comment on Chelsea because I just haven’t seen much of them recently!

But with defeat in a pretty dire game against Middlesbrough last weekend, hopefully everyone will be writing us off against Chelsea like they did against Manchester United last season.

The character of this Arsenal team has been extremely impressive over the last 18 months, and I am confident that defeat will serve as huge motivation to beat Chelsea.

But it won’t be easy.

Sometimes it needs a couple of bad performances and bad results for teams to bounce back and really fight in the coming games. Hopefully history will repeat itself and this young Arsenal side yet again manage to pull off another surprise against the odds.

And the return of Van Persie and Diaby is great news for the team. Arsene has hinted that Fabregas, Hleb and Flamini might have a chance to return on Sunday, and concedes he might be forced into making a gamble or two. Chelsea is a tough game to come back into though so we’ll see what happens. Even the return of only one of those would be a huge boost for the team.

And finally don’t forget this Sunday is ‘Be A Gooner, Be A Giver‘ day where the club is looking to raise money for the TreeHouse charity, so give what you can. William Gallas spoke about supporting the charity and how it also relfects the togetherness in the squad.

It looks like legend Thierry Henry keeps giving to Arsenal aswell, as it appears he donated £3,000 to the cause which is extremely nice of him.

Click here to donate online.

Newcastle United (St James’ Park)
Wednesday 5th December, 2007
Kick Off: 7.45pm – Live On Sky Sports 1

Everyone is banking on Arsenal to cruise tonight against Newcastle, who have been pretty toothless recently under Sam Allardyce as he proves how much of an overrated manager he actually is.

But against Arsenal, his record isn’t bad.

With Bolton, he would be direct and that would cause us real problems. Obviously he is not getting results in the North East because he is forced to make a team actually play decent football, which is a far cry from his tactics at the Reebok.

But with only 4 points from their last 6 games Newcastle – and Allardyce in particular – are desperate.

And with this desperation it could signal trouble for Arsenal.

With injuries to Diaby, Fabregas, Hleb and Flamini our midfield is pretty bare, and with the Walrus urgently needing something from this game to keep the fans and board off his back who says he won’t try to kick Arsenal out of the game?

It looks like Diarra, Denilson and Gilberto will figure in tonight’s game and they will have to be on top form if they are to withstand the physical approach from Newcastle.

I think tonight will be a tough game and I’m just not comfortable with everyone putting 3 points in the bag before the game has even kicked off.

Newcastle have played poorly of late, but against the unbeaten league leaders they will raise their game tenfold.

Let’s make no mistake about it, tonight will be a fight.

I think we’ll just about edge it but I don’t think it will be as straight-forward as most people are making it out to be.

Well this is the biggest game of the entire Premiership season so far.

It’s between the top two teams in the league, and on the evidence of the current campaign both teams play beautiful, attacking and quite frankly ruthless football.

They play the best football, and we know United won’t be as negative as Liverpool were last week.

So everyone is expecting fireworks.

If Arsenal win they will be top. If Arsenal draw they will be top. And if Arsenal lose they could still be top providing they will their game in hand.

So in a strange situation for most of the current team Arsenal are above Manchester United in the league before they even play them. Last season when Arsenal beat United twice no-one gave us a chance and that worked in our favour. In fact when Arsenal visited Old Trafford last season they had the longest odds to win a football match in a long time.

With both teams in great form, the smart money would be on a score draw.

But it could easily go either way.

Arsenal showed terrific character to come back against Liverpool at Anfield, and if it wasn’t for the post and Jamie Carragher’s amazing ability not to concede penalties then they could have taken all three points and no-one would have argued the result.

The confidence in the Arsenal team is sky-high at the moment and it should be – they’re top of the league, unbeaten so far this season and have this new-found determination and togetherness.

So below are the areas where tomorrow’s game could be won or lost:

Possible Problems

With Robin Van Persie out, the form of Adebayor is worrying. Eduardo is still adjusting to life in England and Bendtner and Walcott are inexperienced so the head of our attacking force is solely down to the African striker. Unfortunately, recent performances have been below par – and is coming from a self-confessed Ade-fan.

His performance against Liverpool was quite dire, and he had several opportunities to play his teammates through on goal with a simple pass (none more so than Kolo in the 1st half) but failed miserably. You could argue that Liverpool played deep and didn’t give him much time on the ball but Arsenal’s passing and movement meant that Ade had much more of the ball than he should have but didn’t do much with it. Passes were going astray and nothing he tried came off.

You would assume that United will play a more open game, so there is no doubt that Adebayor will see the ball throughout this game. But whether he contributes to the team in a positive manner is another question.

The only other real problem that faces Arsenal is the treat from set-pieces.

We know Arsene isn’t a fan of defending and the wall at Anfield was pretty useless. I do worry when opposing teams have corners and freekicks – and we know what Ronaldo can do from a set-piece. They also have a strong aerial presence with Ferdinand and Vidic on corners so Gallas and Toure will have to be at their best.

Our Strengths

The form of Cesc Fabregas has been sensational.

Unfortunately everyone knows this and it wouldn’t surprise me if United tried to stifle the little Spaniard. Ferguson has a few options between Ronaldo, Nani, Tevez, Rooney, Giggs and I’d expect 5 in midfield with Tevez playing deeper to crowd in Fabregas.

On the plus side, not even the trio of Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano couldn’t stop him for the whole game and he popped up with the equaliser on 80 minutes and almost scored the winner soon after.

I know I’ve touched on set-pieces above but I think the defence of Gallas, Toure, Clichy and Sagna on the whole has been very solid. Sagna has been fantastic this season and settled in almost immediately. The weakness of Eboue was his positioning and would struggle in the air but Sagna is excellent on both of those counts. We all know about Clichy who is one of our most consistent performers and Kolo and Willie are warriors at the back, and have superb pace.

And of course, the main asset Arsenal have is the togetherness, fight and attitude on the pitch which has been exceptional this season.

Overall

Apart from a terrible day in the office against West Ham United last season Arsenal are currently unbeaten at the Emirates (as far as I am aware) and I expect that to still be the case once the weekend is over. But it will be very tough though.

Like in most football matches the key is the first goal.

If Arsenal scored first at Anfield last week I’m pretty sure Arsenal would have won by a couple of goals (like the FA Cup game last season) as Liverpool would have had to come out. If United score first tomorrow then obviously they will sit on the lead and catch Arsenal on the break because they are excellent at it – especially with the pace of Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney, Giggs and Nani!

Both teams play attacking football and some would expect a goalfest but that’s rarely the case between these two teams (albeit a couple of disasters from Arsenal in recent years) and I think the final score will be 2-1.

Is that for Arsenal? I hope so!