Saints Or Gunners??

   Well well well, football is back but it never went nowhere like Ludacris said after all we just watched decent footy on internationals. It feels like a lifetime of forever but it was only a weekend we missed. The hype is on about the Manchester Derby or is it Mourinho vs Pep all over again? Anyway we all know that’s going to be the star match for this weekend so lets move on.

Now to things arsenal ……...No I am not talking about the story on Eddie Howie being touted as our next coach, Naaaaaaaah that’s for the press. The Gunners welcome the Saints to the emirates in a must win match cuz absolutely any more slip ups in form of dropped points...…you can help fill in the blanks. It's funny how this suddenly is a must win match so early in the season, a reflection of the stiff competition the english premiership has grown to become, add the fact that Chelsea Man United and Man City all boast 100% starts so far (one of them will drop points here …TRUE THAT) can Arsenal make up on lost ground?? BIG BIG question! Southampton haven’t exactly had a stellar start to this season so far, sitting in 15^th place with just two points from a loss & two draws. There has been another summer of high profile exits for them, Saido Mane and Graziano Pelle both top scorers for the Saints last year add Victor Wanyama to that list of  departed...…....i think Arsenal fans can relate to that. Does this mean they should be push overs?? I doubt any match is after all Southampton also have a notable name at the helm - Claude Puel, who played under Wenger at Monaco and has translated his tenacity as a player into management so expect a fight. Arsenal on the other hand need build some momentum with a couple wins to help build team confidence and some momentum. Arsene at his press conference today talked up the maturity of his current squad and how he felt they could compete, especially with the new additions.

“I would say it’s the most mature squad I’ve had for a long time, because they are men,” Wenger said. “They are not 19 or 20 years old, they are 24, 27, 28, and the whole squad is quite mature. It’s the first time for a long time that I’ve had a team of what you can call men, ready to compete. After, we have to show that we are good enough to beat everybody else. “I always believe we have a chance [of the title], even when we had young players. Certainly, I haven’t had a squad of players [like this] for a long time, who have enough experience to compete”.

I am quite sure we have all heard that before, lets have football do the talking starting with another win. The team selection should remain the same as Watford except maybe Alexis could start from the bench since he only joined the team on Thursday from international duty. I wouldn’t start Mustafi over holding just yet, I am kinda liking Rob the way he is coming along even though it seems we have thrown him into the deep end a bit early but let us see how he performs. Let’s give Perez a start over Giroud.
                

                   Cech

Bells__ Kos___Rob___Nacho

                                                                       

        Granit___Santi

                Ozil

 Walcott____Perez_____Ox

Subs: Gibbs, Giroud, Alexis, Coq, Elneny, Iwobi.  

That should do it for a first of many three points at home, do enjoy the game wherever you are and please dont forget to comment/like/share the post...........….ciao.

Fillers On International Break

 The inter lull comes in just at that time when you are getting down with an ice cold lager, ready to chill with the boiz and enjoy the footy fest, yeah bad timing init? I know I am sounding like a fantasy football addict/nerd here, but you expect that those peeps at FIFA should know better than to punctuate the glee of league football just when we were all getting into the groove of the new season. Now don’t get me wrong, international tournaments are cool and also necessary for the global growth of the game, however the recent stink of corruption that has engulfed the global football governing body has left fans of the game just asking what exactly the essence of their existence is, a balance keeper or another vortex conduit for funneling the huge largesse the sport generates from sponsors??

  Ok so enough of my whining, still some titbits on football matters to banter even when the leagues are on pause for the internationals. The Nigerian super eagles did our FIFA ranking no ill with a narrow 1-0 win over the “Taifa” stars of Tanzania through a Kelechi Iheanacho scorcher curled into the top corner of Aishi Manula’s goal in the 78^th minute. See the goal here , now that’s 3 goals in 5 matches, Pep I hope you are watching.  Manula had more or less being the difference between what should have being a Dasukigate thumping & the respectable 1-0 score after 90+minutes. I must say the Nigerian forwards were very wasteful in attack having created chance after chance without taking them. I don’t mean to take anything away from Manula’s man of the match performance though, he was jaw droppingly imperious between the sticks for Tanzania, hats off to him, he was THE MAN!!

The Nigerian Super Eagles (Image courtesy soccernetdotcomdotng)

 We know the super eagles wouldn’t be at the next AFCON in Gabon 2017, however Gernot Rohr must realize that much work is to be done for the current eagles team to achieve anything significant at the next world cup, if we do qualify to be on the trip to Russia 2018, still a win is always a good start for any coach. I wish him best of luck with the drama kings at the glass house in Abuja.

Unto other happenings as per Gunners, a charity match between Arsenal Legends Vs Milan Glorie organized by The Arsenal Foundation rolled back memories. The football legends were coming together for the good cause of spreading the beautiful game to refugee camps of internally displaced people in Somalia and Jordan and I believe 1Million pounds sterling would go a long way in developing football pitches in not just Somalia and Jordan but also IDP camps in north eastern parts of Nigeria too[I wish]. Anyway not much to give in terms of a match report as these affairs are basically not about the scoreline, it was still nice to see the gunners come out on top by a 4-2 scoreline, with our own Nwankwo Kanu showing Ighalo, Moses and co how to do it in front of goal.    A throwback Kannuuuuuuuuu grabbing a hat trick and Bobby Pires adding a 4^th goal while Vieri nabbed a brace for Milan Glorie. It was nice seeing Seaman, Gilberto, Ljunberg, Keown, Anders limpar, Vieri, Dida , Cafu,  & other legends that made us fall in love with both teams strut their stuff on the pitch, showing some of today’s up and comings that the class was still there you know ………… we still gat game. I for one had never seen Anders limper play in an arsenal shirt, and it was nice to see him having heard and read so much about the nifty swede. The one thing that got me wondering was the absence of Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera……cant help but wonder if much is to be read into their recent criticisms of Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal board over the way the club has seemingly refused to strengthen the team appropriately but that is talk for another day. Some can argue that Igwe was handling business with the Belgian Team on their world cup qualifiers, still eyebrows are curiously raised here. Elsewhere we hear rumblings that Ozil would very much like to take over the number 10 jersey vacated by Jack on loan, as well as possibly kick of discussions on a his contract extension which would be nice, maybe that would help convince Alexis make up his mind and stay with Arsenal too. You can definitely trust us to keep you posted the season’s events unfold.  On that note I will be leaving you to enjoy the rest of the weekend offering on international footy fest, please feel free to like share and comment on this post, lets make it an interactive community for lovers of the game and of course, things Arsenal……ciao