Arsenal Name A Strong Squad For Singapore Trip

Pre season training has only just begun and Arsenal are already off on a trip almost halfway around the world to Singapore. The days of a trip to the Austrian mountains for conditioning and to build up the players strength and fitness are long gone with the need to build up the club's international profile considered to be so important. The Premier League has become such a global product that Arsenal need to make these trips to build their profile and increase their fan base.

There are very few absences from the full Arsenal squad for the trip with 27 players in total boarding the plane. The notable absences are Alexis Sanchez, David Ospina, Danny Welbeck and Tomas Risicky who all miss out for various reasons. Both Welbeck and Rosicky are carrying injuries and won't travel while Alexis and Ospina are still on their holidays after only recently finishing playing in the Copa America. 

Alexis won't be back at the club until August 3rd and will surely miss the start of the season, but Ospina will be back a week earlier. Of course the rumours of Ospina's departure persist and there's every chance he could be on his way out of the club before then. There's no doubt Alexis will be missed in the first couple of games after his fantastic performances last season, but there will be plenty of other players looking to make an impression in those games..

Besides the majority of the first team squad making the trip to Singapore there are still a few youngsters getting the chance to ply their trade. There are great hopes for players like Dan Crowley and Gedion Zelalem and we will hopefully get a chance to see what they can do in the next week. The team start off with a game against a Singapore Select team next Wednesday and will follow that with a game on Saturday the 18th. 

When they return from Singapore they will work hard for another week before playing in the Emirates Cup. A week later it's the Community Shield game against Chelsea and then the league season kicks off the following week. It still feels like the football season just ended, but the new season is only four weeks away.

In other news Lukas Podolski finally made his exit from the club when he signed for Galatasaray. His chances at Arsenal would have been severely limited next season and the only way he was going to get a game was if the team suffered a huge injury crisis. Hopefully that injury crisis won't rear it's ugly head and Podolski won't be missed. 

I hope he does well at his new club, but I never really felt he fitted in perfectly on the pitch with Arsenal though. He was quite the expert on social media and made himself popular among many Arsenal fans with some clever posts on occasions. At this point in his career he needs to be playing and it was obvious he needed a move for that to happen.

It was also announced that Mikel Arteta has extended his contract at the club and will be an Arsenal player for another year at least. Last season was a frustrating one for him as it was ruined by persistent and recurring injuries, but hopefully things will be a lot better for him this season. I can't see him commanding a regular place in the team, but he still has a lot to offer.

He's still the club captain and you would imagine his influence in the dressing room and with the younger players is quite important. I know he's not the same type of player as Francis Coquelin, but he will probably fill in for him on occasions as Coquelin won't be able to play every game this season. There's still talk of another player coming in to challenge Coquelin in that role or even to play alongside him on occasions and any purchase would really hamper Arteta's chances.

He has had his detractors at times, but I always thought he was a very good player being asked to play a role which didn't come naturally to him. When he joined Arsenal he definitely wasn't seen as some sort of defensive midfielder, but he has had to adjust his game to suit the team's needs and he did it quite well. I hope we get to see a fair deal of him this season in what could quite easily be his last season as an Arsenal player.

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Arsenal Only Manage to Draw With Orient In The FA Cup.

Before the start of yesterday's FA Cup fifth round trip to Leyton Orient took place the draw for the quarter finals was made. The result of that draw was a potential trip to Old Trafford to play "Manure", as long as Arsenal could overcome their lower league opponents. It brought back memories of the FA Cup defeat to "Manure" a couple of seasons ago which led to Arsenal's season falling apart in a matter of days. In that game Arsenal played a weakened team, and were well and truly beaten 4-0.

In the FA Cup so far this season Arsene Wenger has played varying degrees of weakened teams in every game, and it has led to struggles in every round. I had hoped that the second string would step up yesterday, and put in a display to banish those struggles in the previous rounds from the mind, but alas it was not so. I spoke yesterday of the need for some drive in the team, and the player in the pivotal role was Tomas Rosicky. He did manage to score Arsenal's only goal, and he almost got another one too, but he didn't control the game in the manner that Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri or Jack Wilshere would have done in my opinion.With one or two changes in personell yesterday I am sure Arsenal would have strolled through the game, and won at ease.

Arsene Wenger picked the team that was more or less expected, with the exception of the inclusion of Ignasi Miquel at centre back. The young Spaniard was making his full debut alongside Sebastien Squillaci, as both Johan Djourou, and Laurent Koscielny enjoyed a well earned break. The only first team regulars to be included were Bacary Sagna and Alex Song, which meant that the front three consisted of Andrey Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner and Marouane Chamakh. I don't think that Bendtner and Chamakh can play particularly well together, and it's not fair to expect Bendtner to play in a wide right role.

The first half was hardly inspiring, as Arsenal had by far the majority of possession, but they created very little in front of goal. The best chance fell to Chamakh when a Kieran Gibbs shot/pass went across the face of the goal, but he failed to make any proper contact with the goal gaping. His form has been very poor since the return of Robin Van Persie to the team, and he needs a goal or two to turn things around for him, but it wasn't to be on this occasion. Half time came with no goals for either team, and I hoped for some better fare in the second half.

The second half started in much the same vein, and I wondered how long Orient could continue to work so hard to keep Arsenal at bay. It turned out that their resilience didn't last too long, as Rosicky broke the deadlock in the 53rd minute. The manner of the goal was a surprise to me and judging by his reaction it was a surprise to Rosicky too. After a couple of blocked shots Bendtner put a cross into the Orient box, and it was met by the head of Rosicky 10 yards out. The ball went off his head, and into the corner of the net for the lead Arsenal wanted.

At that stage it was obvious to me that Arsenal only needed one more goal to finish the game off, but they just couldn't get it. Rosicky almost scored again from an Arshavin cut-back, but the Orient keeper made a good save. Orient gradually began to commit more men forward to try to get an equaliser, and Arsenal had a little more space to attack in. I thought Arsenal needed somebody to play in a wide right role, as there seemed to be acres of space in that position every time they attacked. Bendtner was supposed to be playing there, but as I said it's not his favoured position, or his best one either. 

With only a few minutes left it looked like Arshavin would wrap the game up for Arsenal, as he broke away from the Orient defence, but his shot hit the post and went wide. He could possibly have squared the  ball for Rosicky who had made a great run through the middle, but he chose to shoot instead. I had a funny feeling Arsenal might just pay for that miss, and so it proved almost immediately.

After a little bit of ping pong in front of the Arsenal defence the ball was taken down by Orient sub Jonathan Tehoue. He broke through poor attempted tackles by Gibbs and Miquel, and from just inside the box he blasted a shot under the despairing attempt to stop it by Manuel Almunia.  Neither of the two defenders who missed the tackle did particularly well, and I thought Almunia was a bit slow to get down to the shot too. It was a well taken goal though, and the player deserves plenty of credit for that.

Suddenly Arsenal started to show the urgency that wasn't apparent when they were 1-0 up, but it was too late, and Orient managed to see out the four added minutes with relative ease. It means Arsenal won't have the six day break they looked like getting after the Carling Cup final next week, as they will have to play the replay at home on Wednesday March 2nd. I'm sure Arsenal will play a very similar team in that game, and it won't mean any extra work for most of the first team players, but it is another game they could have done without.

The reaction of some fans was a little over the top after the game, as they slated the players and the manager for the result and the performance. It wasn't a good performance, but without that defensive lapse at the end, it would have given the boss he wanted without troubling any of the players on the bench that he wanted to rest. I still think Arsenal will win the replay, and progress to the next round without too much trouble, but it was disappointing that the team chosen on the day didn't put in enough effort to win a game that was there for the taking.

Arsenal have a far more important game on Wednesday night at home to Stoke RFC in the Premier League, and it was vital that no first team players picked up injuries before that game. A win would see the gap at the top closed to just one point ahead of three tough away league games in a row for "Manure". If the boss had played a few of his first team players, won the game, but picked up an injury or two he would have been slated by the same people who have slated him for not picking a strong enough team. Some Arsenal fans enjoy slating the boss, and the players too, and any game they don't win is seen as an excuse to do just that. 

As it stands Arsenal are joint second favourites to win the FA Cup, second favourites to win the Premier League, favourites to win the Carling Cup, and fifth favourites to win the Champions League. They can still win all four trophies, and within a week the outcome of the first of those trophies will be known. In only six days from now Arsenal will play Birmingham City in the Carling Cup final, and it's a game they will need to have all of their best players available for in my opinion. The Orient replay three days later will be just a sideshow, and the league game against Sunderland three days after that will be far more important in my opinion. 

Some fans are entitled to feel that the team should have won yesterday, but at least they didn't lose. The earlier poor performances in cup games by the second string team has not affected the confidence of the first team, and I'm sure yesterday's game will be no different. It means that Arsenal will play in all four competitions in successive games starting with the game against Birmingham, and it could be a season defining run of games. Hopefully it will bring Arsenal's first trophy in almost six years, a place at the top of the Premier League, and progress to the next round of the FA Cup, and the Champions League also. It's an awful lot to expect of the Arsenal players, but if they can do it the rewards could be enormous.

That's it for today.

Here's the highlights from yesterday's game.

See You Tomorrow.