I was perusing the betting sites, online, and realized that the Gunners are favored at a higher rate than Chelsea over Birmingham City. Now either the Gunners are playing better or Villa is playing worse. And to play worse than City says alot, as I watched one of the most pathetic efforts in professional football, when City got destroyed 7-0 to Liverpool. I digress, but if there was ever a match to play some of the newer acquisitions, this may be it.
Villa have had two poor showings recently. 11 days ago they were beaten, 4-1, to Everton. The performance sparked the spontaneous chanting, “O’Leary Out!”, from the fans. This last weekend they were part of a dreary tie that ended 0-0 to Fulham. Now Fulham are the League’s worst road team and actually are the countries worst road team. Villa could not even buy a goal, at home against Fulham! “O’Leary Out, O’Leary Out!”
A couple of years back, David O’Leary had inspired a limited Villa squad to do great things. Villa finished well above where they were expected and O’Leary seemed to defend his honor and his record with Leeds. Now the fans want him gone. He’s had some money to spend and time to create a team and his team is falling short of new expectations. A couple of years back there was talk of Wenger being swayed to Madrid and who would take his place. I was fully in support of O’Leary coming back to the halls of Highbury and leading this great club. Now if the opportunity were to occur I’d have to question that decision.
O’Leary has had alot of injuries and been forced to contend with alot of different formations. It’s as if he has had to experiment at every turn and the chemistry has never worked. Is this a manager’s fault?Is it just bad luck? Is it fair to blame him for something that ultimately he may not have been able to control? Perhaps not, but in the world of football it is only the results that matter and O’Leary is taking the blame for them.
17 Responses to “Aston Villa”
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March 30th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Having one week of rest before the Juventus game did make the difference for our boys. For the game against Villa, I hope Wenger will rest most of the players for next Wednesday. Since this is a home game and Villa’s away form is very poor, I think it is a reasonable risk to take even though making 4th in the EPL is still highest priority. If it were an away game or against stronger opponent, then it will not be a good move. Arsenal to win 2-0. This is my preferred lineup for Saturday:
Lehmann
Eboue Toure Sendoros Flamini
Walcott Diaby Song Reyes
Adebayor van Persie
Subs:
Almunia
Djourou
Henry
Cesc
March 30th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
The LEAGUE matches just as important as the CL, if not MORE important.
This weekend is HUGE for us.
The Totts are @ Newcastle, while Bolton are home v. ManU (the hottest team in the league)
We need to play our BEST team, to WIN the match… period. Its extremely important we get the 3 points and not F-around trying to do so.
A win here, and either or both the Totts & Bolton dropping points would be FANTASTIC. It would greatly increase our chances for 4th place, AND… keep the momentum going that we have created. There is no time to screw up at this point and start playing safe and resting players for CL matches. Sorry… we got rest when Portsmouth had a shite pitch… REST IN FREAKING JUNE…
ALL GUNS BLAZING. Lets roll Villa early… and then if we want to take off a few players at half or with 30 minutes left, do so…. but let’s not mess around with this struggling team and field a weaker side.
Thats not smart.
March 31st, 2006 at 1:18 am
This is not the time to mess around with team selection. Best is to start with a strong team, romp to 3-0 by half time and then rest some players for next Wed.
I’ve been waiting to see Walcott for a long time. Maybe we have to pay a lot if he plays this season, so we are trying to avoid it.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:25 am
I think we should play it safe and field the strongest squad we have. Once we have taken the lead then we can make some changes to the squad. I would love to see Henry get some rest. But only after he scores so that he ties with RvD in the top scorer pole.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:54 am
Stag I agree. In fact i think the LEAGUE is more important than CL.
A CL trophy is important for the FANS.
A top 4 finish in the league thus qualify for CL is important for the CLUB.
Best sceniro though… is for Spurs to finish 4th… just when they are celebrating like crazy… we win the CL!! That will top it all!
(according to the new rule, if a club fails to finish top 4th in the Premiership, yet they go on to win the CL, the original 4th place team would be stripped away their CL qualifying right the next season.)
March 31st, 2006 at 7:06 am
Best scenario is to finish 4th and Spurs 5th. Then top it up by winning the CL. That will be adding insult to injury.
March 31st, 2006 at 8:12 am
Andez, I think more than a few of us have thought about (and laughed at the possibility) of that scenario. Spurs getting 4th… only for us to claim their Champion’s League spot by winning the CL!
That would be brilliant!
March 31st, 2006 at 10:10 am
NO what would be better is for AFC to finish 4th, Bolton 5th, Blackburn 6th and Spurs 7th.
They dont qualify for the CL.
March 31st, 2006 at 10:13 am
I can see where you are coming from but the quality needs to be on the bench.
Resting Henry, Fabregas, Reyes and Toure could be beneficial, but they would need to be on the bench.
March 31st, 2006 at 10:39 am
I agree with Stag. Lets line up the best team Arsenal have and get the 3 point. If we do have the game in our pocket, then take Henry and Cesce out to rest and feild in whoever u want.
Simple ..Bergy and Adabeyor will not be in Italy so u can use them here .. RVP havent played a lot lately, so lets play him a bit here …
Anyone knows when will Cole be back ? God its been so long .. whats going on there .
March 31st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Cole’s ongoing litigation keeps F’ing up his ankle.
March 31st, 2006 at 7:01 pm
It would be total lunacy to field a weakened team. It would only serve to give Aston Villa a massive pre-match boost.
If we drew or god forbid lost tomorrow it would totally screw up our chances of 4th place, and then too much pressure is applied to the players to win the Champions League instead. In the space of 5 days we could bugger up everything.
At the moment we need to be confident in our ability to make 4th place.
March 31st, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Look i don’t care about David O’Leary under pressure at Villa or their track record so far, yes he has been a great service for us with a record of 722 appearances for Arsenal in his heyday. But we have to start looking at every game as a must win now, fourth place is the goal this season straight. We can’t take any team likely this season or underestimate a lower table team for now on. That is whats letting us down this season, we beat a big team like Real Madrid over the moon only to be brought right down to earth by Blackburn Rovers, that made me sick.
We beat Juventus fine, now lets not make the same mistake and relax against these mid-table teams just because we have had another great European night.
Hopefuly Newcastle will get a win against Spurs at Tyneside and a victory will cut their 5 points down to 2 points plus a game in hand with Portsmouth on a re-scheduled date. But we have to keep mentaly focused and not thinking about Henry’s contract situation, Pires wanting a better deal, Vieria’s suspension and rumors on Ashely Coles future at Highbury. It should just be 100% on the Villa match and then finish the job in Turin, then Manchester United. We can’t afford anything less than a win in every game now, we have to make sure when Tottenham come to Highbury in mid-April we are already above them and that’s were we kill any hopes of them finishing 4th.
But we shouldn’t let the Champions League be a distraction, i’m so sick of hearing a possible ‘Liverpool’ is on the cards. Look Liverpool as far as i’m concern shrived on luck last season in the Champions League they should have lost to Chelski in the Semi-Finals, along with some perfectic stuff from Jamie Carragher diving in the last few seconds of the game but the commentators forgived him and the Luis Garcia ‘goal’ was no where near a goal as far as i’m concern.
The i see it we are not going to do a ‘Liverpool’ finishing 5th and letting our local neighbours finish above us. We are going one better than them and winning that European Cup but finishing 4th and qualifying properly than having to be voted in by UEFA which was ridiculous.
April 1st, 2006 at 2:07 am
Simple - keep momentum going play full team and after a comfy lead sub a few around the 70 minute mark and that would be rest enough…
Arsene Knows!!
April 1st, 2006 at 6:02 am
http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=375714&CPID=8&clid=&lid=1490&title=Opta+Player+of+the+Month
OPTA stats for March. Adebayor is 4th!!! I know stats don’t give the full picture but I think it shows how useful he has been.
April 1st, 2006 at 6:29 am
nipuna, this kid works so hard. i remember one incident during the Charlton game, we were defending, i was suprised to see Adebayor was standing on the edge of our OWN penalty box, helping out the defence…. The next moment, we broke forward, and he ran all the way back to Charlton’s penalty box joining up the attack.
He’s by far our most hardworking center forward since the days of Alan Smith and Ian Wright. Full of energy.
April 1st, 2006 at 9:11 am
Who wouldn’t be full of energy, when you get the chance to play next to the best striker in the world, and one who passes as much as he shoots, Thierry Henry.