Gooners to be top of the league in October?
July 18, 2007 on 9:09 pm | In Arsenal FC | posted by Block19er |Despite the usual transfer rubbish this is the part of the season that fills me with excitement. It’s all starting again there’s no disappointment of poor performances or bad results to look back on and all the players are lifted with the fact they have a ball at their feet again.
After reading Frank Stubbs blog on the Arsenal website today it’s really got me jealous I’m at home in the rain working!! Why I haven’t gone to Austria this year is beyond me. With the access you have to players, the good beer and food, and sun, there is no good reason not to take in this part of pre-season.
Today was the first real hard training session of the pre-season trip to Austria and it was played out in front of the travelling Gooners and in near 40oC heat. Richard Clarke was happy to point out Wenger “seemed in good spirits. This is, after all, one of the purest times of the football season for him. It is total preparation - no disturbance, no pressure. A time to ingrain good habits.” Richard also seemed impressed with Nicklas Bendtners’ form. Bendtner pointed out on arsenal.com he is keen to impress and feels he is ready to make his mark in the Arsenal team.
Freddie was there despite previous reports he has not travelled and Sagna and Eduardo were also involved in the session. Happily Denilson was also involved a relief after he was stretchered off against Barnet.
Fabregas was also on arsenal.com today saying he believes Arsenal will definitely be able to cope with the loss of Henry and Arsenal will challenge for the title, champions league, FA Cup, and Carling Cup next season. Fabregas also said he wants to be Arsenal captain one day which is a very positive statement from a player we feared might leave.
The Onlinegooner has a further photo of the new Arsenal third shirt that is blue and burgundy. It would be very strange seeing Arsenal in that kit but the white kit certainly has taken off, so I guess, why not?
The final story comes from something Wenger said yesterday. Arsene has said that we lost the title against the bottom half of the table. He said that we were top of the league in matches against the top four, second in games against the other top half teams and he went on to say “that is where we will have to be much more efficient this season. We have to be consistent in our mental preparation, in our ruthlessness as well.” Wenger and Toure have both pointed out in recent days we will be better at home next season, to me this is where we fell away last term. Games against Villa, Boro, Everton, Newcastle, and Pompey were draws but they were played out as Arsenal wins. Arsenal controlled these games and I am sure the fact they felt like away games or games at a new ground lead to them only being draws. We had chances to win all these games and we would have been 15 points better off at Christmas. It would have left us top of the table and despite the loss away to Sheffield Utd we would have been likely Champions. But the points weren’t ours and the season fell away. If Arsenal can fly out of the traps and win against Fulham, City, Pompey, and Derby we’ll really have momentum especially if we can avoid defeat at Blackburn and the Scum. The Chavs also play Scouse and Manure so we could be clear at the top come October. Wishful thinking?!?
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The shop in the Nou Camp has a different Arsenal ‘Euro’ shirt for sale (yeah, i know, they’re just trying to rub it in, they also have Celtic shirts as all are Nike). It is mainly the deep blue with a small amount of red towards the bottom of the shirt, and very thin gold bands. I was gonna buy one as i hadn’t seen it before but was getting too much ribbing about not getting Henry’s name on it.
Comment by james — July 18, 2007 #
Is that not the new training shirt? Perhaps the original pic with Theo was made up?
Comment by Gooner #1 — July 19, 2007 #