Stoke City vs Arsenal: Match preview – Is Gallas really injured? And please, Ramsey for Cesc, Vela for Adebayor
Written by Chris on October 31, 2008 9:05
So much to say ahead of tomorrow’s match away at Stoke City. First of all, it seems we’ll be without William Gallas who is a doubt with a hamstring injury. Also doubtful is Emmanuel Eboue. Now I wonder if this is one of the many invented injuries by Wenger who prefers to hide facts behind injuries rather than declare that he’s dropping a player. William went off the pitch unhappy last Wednesday but seriously, who didn’t?
Let me tell you something: I could hardly sleep on Thursday after that horrible final minutes of the North London derby, I kept dreaming on the goals and thinking about the what will be. I have no idea about the morale of the side ahead of tomorrow, it’s so much like Birmingham of last season. For sure, we cannot miss, we simply cannot, it would then mean waving goodbye to the title once and for all.
I repeat what I said yesterday: it’s time for changes, and plenty of them. I don’t want to see Denilson and I don’t want to see Adebayor tomorrow. Actually, I don’t want to see them anymore. Only Wenger has been so blind this season not to realise that Ramsey and Vela would be much better choices. And also, I don’t want to see Fabregas if he’s not happy anymore to play for us. I’m fed up of players who go cry-cry with the media rather than stating facts to the board of directors or even better, on the pitch.
We have the players to replace those who are not performing so use them, for God’s sake, don’t wait for them to be unsettled and leave. Ramsey refused Manchester United to join us, but I’m not so sure he would do so next summer after a season on the bench.
Coach Arsene Wenger before the match:
We are very angry and disappointed but on the other hand we have to stay positive because we were two levels above and produced an outstanding game. Unfortunately we were not rewarded because we lack maturity and instead of being efficient we became a little too negative in the last 10 minutes. The potential is outstanding in the side but the result is down to inexperience.
In football, nothing is inconceivable. We were a little unlucky as well but you have to produce the maximum with what you have on the pitch and we did not do that. My team produced an outstanding performance and deserved to win but maybe we wanted it too much and put ourselves under pressure rather than scoring goals five and six. What happened to us when we were leading 4-2 should never happen.
It looks like Gallas will be out and maybe Eboue too. It is a little recurrence of the hamstring for William and for Manu it is his knee. He is not running properly at the moment. He still has pain.
So much has been said against Mourinho during his time at Chelsea, but hey, he had the nuts to replace three players at half time, regardless of who they were. Wenger is not like that, he picks the team according to their last name and that has been a suicide this season.
So, it’s time to change Arsene, and please start doing it tomorrow.

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