1st home game this season against portsmouth
I bet Arsenal should win by 2 goals .. but don't expect a walkover unless they score early in 1st half , o'wise it will be a tough game.
I think Arshavin or Van Persie should open their scoresheet today at home but don't expect an easy game especially Portsmouth already lost 2 opening games this season.
sharing with you guys ..go gooners...!!!
How are the big clubs shaping up for the title race? Too early to say.The transfer window is still open and significant players will move in the next 10 days. Vermaelen looks solid, Gallas still concentrates well, Song passes the ball forward even if Denilson doesn't, and the embryonic 4-3-3 gets its first outing in a competitive home game. If Birmingham can keep a clean sheet against Portsmouth, so can Arsenal. Having said that, Portsmouth were the victims of the most ridiculous penalty decision of 2009, when keeper David James went to catch a ball that squirted up off the head of Kaboul. Sebastian Larsson clearly bodychecked James, making no attempt to play the ball, so that it would go out for a corner to Birmingham. The linesman said James fouled Larsson! And the referee, who must have had a better view, went along with it. ARSENAL have only played one league game so far. They won 6-1 at Everton. The group is happier with two Africans having been sold. If Arsenal break into the Big Three they will not have to play two CLQ games in August 2010. Against Portsmouth, Eduardo could start. He is mentally sharp and can read Arshavin. SPURS have won twice and, as Alan Hansen told us four times on midweek Match of the Day, "Defoe's on fire". Spurs visit West Ham, Jermaine Defoe's old club. CHELSEA'Ss new coach Carlo Ancelotti likes to play a diamond. We all looked at his diamond and some of us were dubious because Lampard's skill is to time runs from deeper positions. Against Hull last Saturday, it was a ding-dong game, very hectic, and Hull scored first and Carlo may have been a bit shocked. He had seen DVDs and he has Ray Wilkins to tell him what it was going to be like. But he must have been surprised by the aggressive intensity of the EPL. In the end, Drogba won it with a fluke goal that was meant to be a cross for Kalou. Fulham v Chelsea is on Sunday and Fulham always give them a game. Unfortunately, Roy Hodgson has lost Andy Johnson to a dislocated shoulder in the Europa Cup last night and his boys have less recovery time. Chelsea's old men might regain the title for the first time in four years. When Jose Mourino came, George Graham said no manager could win the title in his first season SIR ALEX picked a rubbish midfield at Turf Moor and Manchester United lost 1-0. Park-Carrick-Giggs-Anderson is not a midfield. Michael Owen stunk the place out. Owen is a physical player, not a touch player, and physical players do not play well in August. They need six weeks to get going Burnley's Owen Coyle is a terrific coach who has turned a team of journeymen into a side that might stay up. They beat Man United deservedly. Burnley followed orders, marked tight, passed well, held it up in the front third, moved forward in numbers to support the ball, ran out of steam in the last ten minutes but didn't concede. And Robbie Blake buried the volley of a lifetime. It's always great to score a goal like that. To score the only goal of thr game with a volley like that is special. And to score it to win a game against Manchester United is extra-special. Jensen, Paterson, Fletcher, Blake and Carlisle are useful players. I used to see Clark Carlisle at QPR when my former flatmate Chris Wright owned the club and we sat in the directors box. For a while I wondered if Carlisle might become the new Steve Bould and play at a higher level. Then he got a horrible injury. WIGAN v Manchester United is a nice game for right winger Valencia against his former club and a chance for Roberto Martinez to do what Owen Coyle did. Wigan have better players than Burnley but maybe their teamwork isn't so fluent yet. Martinez made his debut for Wigan on August 12, 1995 at Gillingham in Division Three. He was a midfielder and scored in his first game. But they lost 2-1. A good guy who plays attractive football, so Martinez has taken charge at a club where he played for six years. MANCHESTER CITY should beat Wolves. City played a friendly in the Nou Camp on Wednesday night and won it 1-0. They broke away to score a typical City goal when the move left Petrov one-on-one with the keeper. In injury time, Messi got a pass from Dani Alves, nicked it round Stephen Ireland and hit a 25-yard cannonball that came back off the base of the post. It would have been an amazing goal if it had gone in. There was still time for City to break again, for Ireland to play Craig Bellamy in. Bellamy's shot was aimed low for the corner but just beat the post. Good experience for City, good marketing. Their players think : I'd love to come back here in the Champions League! There was a trophy presented at the end and Pep Guardiola cruised round smiling and shaking hands with everybody. He seemed to be alright about it. The game was a fitness work-out for him. Like me, he thinks pre-season is for coaches. But the Barca players had to stand around before the presentation and they all looked uncomfortable. They did not know what to do with themselves and Messi looked really cheesed off. The little genius is used to winning and celebrating. He knows how to acknowledge the cheers of a large crowd. They won the treble last season, so he's had practice doing that. LIVERPOOL were strong last season but depended too much on Torres and Gerrard. The loss of Xabi Alonso is mega for them. As Tony Gale just said on Sky, his long passes gave the strikers an extra split second on the ball and that is vital. Torres and Gerrard didn't look fit at Spurs last Sunday and they lost 2-1. Rafa is a bit of a nutcase, as we all know, but he can manage men. We saw a great example of that this week. What he did with Fernando Torres, what he said, was old school. It was like Bill Shankly or Brian Clough. He told Torres, 25, to ignore the verbal and physical abuse dished out by his opponents. Rafa said, "I have told him that he has to stop this. He knows he has to improve this aspect of his game. He has to be completely focused on his football and he knows that the way forward is to respond to any intimidation by scoring. Sometimes it is not easy to deal with everything opponents do, but he knows he must deal with it in a different way." Like Clough or Shankly, Rafa was saying : Be a man, be a pro, do your job ! On Tuesday night Torres scored after 4 minutes against a rugged Stoke team and Liverpool went on to win 4-0 with Gerrard making two goals. Torres had 12 stitches in his head after making a terrific Klinsmann-type header where his head followed through and hit the head of Shawcross. That's an occupational hazard for a proper centre forward. The EPL has toughened Torres up and helped him win Euro 2008. When the World Cup comes round, the pressure will not bother Nando, as Cesc calls him. Aug 21, 2009
