The Game

An early kick-off, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool to have non-easy games on Sunday, this weekend could be the one in which our Premier League campaign finally kicks off.

As I said yesterday in the preview, my personal objective when I look at Arsenal this season is to finish in the Top Four in England, qualify from the Group Stage of the Champions League and win either the F.A. Cup or the Carling Cup just to end that seven-year trophyless crisis that is now becoming unacceptable. Anything more than that, is a bonus.

This has nothing to do with my belief in the squad or my desire for success, it’s just the way things are. For the last five years we have seen manager Arsene Wenger experiment with young players, bringing no experience at all and using players in an unusual position as it was the case with Nicklas Bendtner.

Then suddenly, a radical change, even with his youth policy as he admitted yesterday on Arsenal Player that putting pressure on young players in big games “is not right”. Pretty obvious, if you ask me.

Today’s game is tricky. Blackburn didn’t enjoy a good start to their campaign and knowing Arsenal they will believe that today is their golden opportunity to get an important point in front of the home support or why not, all three points if they manage to provoke us.

We have to be careful, that’s for sure. For maybe the first time this season, the regular players who will go out there know that their next game will be in a week and not in mid-week as on Tuesday, against Shrewsbury Town the reserves will be used hence giving a much-needed rest to Robin van Persie and co.

And, until you wait for kick-off, check out why Arsene Wenger believes that Laurent Koscielny will be one of Europe’s strongest centre backs despite only having two years experience in top level football as well as why, according to Lee Dixon, getting all three points from today’s game is a possibility.

As always, please do join the discussion in our chat room which will also be active after the full time whistle. You will be glad to know that from this season, to provide a better chat experience to our readers, users can be banned if they post offensive comments.

Streaming Links

For those who don’t know where to watch the game, maybe we can help, follow this link for streaming options. Links are updated before and during the match.

The Line-Ups

Blackburn Rovers

Robinson, Salgado, Samba, Dann, Givet, Hoilett, Lowe, Nzonzi, Rochina, Formica, Yakubu

Subs: Bunn, Olsson, Grella, Petrovic, Vukcevic, Roberts, Hanley

Arsenal

Szczesny, Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Santos, Song, Arteta, Ramsey, Gervinho, Arshavin, van Persie

Subs: Fabianski, Djourou, Gibbs, Benayoun, Coquelin, Walcott, Chamakh

Half-Time Thoughts and Analysis

As the chat room has grown in popularity, my half-time thoughts as well as the comments of other Arsenal fans are now being discussed in the Arsenal Interactive chat room to which you can find a link at the bottom of this page. Please feel free to join the fun and share your point of view.