Morning all,
Tons of reaction to the match on Wednesday so I’ll get right into it.
Walcott talked to Arsenal.com about the upcoming weeks.
“The lads were brilliant against Villarreal, we dug in at their place and this was an absolutely fantastic result for us. Last year we had our bad spell at the end but this year hopefully we’ve had that and hopefully we can have a brilliant end to the season.
“We like to stay in the background, keep nice and quiet and just come round the back. We’re getting players back fit and we’re performing at the right time. We’re playing brilliant football and we’re scoring goals from all sorts of positions, which helps the team. Obviously we’re defending well too.
“We have players out but the players coming in are doing just as good a job. We’re flying at the moment.
“There is a lot of confidence in the dressing room, everyone is buzzing, we feel every team are scared of us as soon as we step on the pitch. It’s great to play when things are going like that.”
Adebayor added,
“I know Man United already and they know us, so it will be quite an interesting game for the fans and all the people who love football, we know it will be tough to play against them, we know how good they are, but we will be ready for that.
“The Chelsea game is first and our confidence is very high. We played quite well against Villarreal. We know how strong Chelsea are so we have to get the ball down and play our own football. But we showed we can beat any team in the world if we play our football.
“I was the main striker so it was important to get a goal on Wednesday. The three main forwards all scored and that’s good for our confidence.”
Sounds like the locker room is full of confidence. “We feel teams fear us as soon as we get on the pitch”, “We can beat any team in the world if we play our football”, and “We’re flying at the moment.” Those are the kind of quotes you want before a important stretch like this. We know with a young squad like ours that confidence is the biggest trait needed, because on pure talent we are unmatched by anyone in the world. With on-form players like Fabregas, Toure, Adebayor, Walcott, and Arshavin, anything is possible at this point.
Robert Pires called about the reception he got at the Emirates on Wednesday.
“Personally, I wasn’t expecting such a warm and an amazing welcome from the Arsenal fans,” he said afterwards.
“It shows how great the Arsenal fans are and that they don’t forget their former players. I was really touched and moved by their ovation and the fact that they were singing my name.”
We don’t forget Pires. You will always be an Arsenal legend. We just wish you never left.
Pires was nice enough to add that we are going to win the Champions League.
Kieran Gibbs picked up a groin injury in the Villareal match and is a doubt for the Chelsea FA Cup semi-final.
I’m not sure where this puts us. We don’t have 4 healthy defenders. Sagna, Clichy, Gallas, and Djourou are also out. The only defensive line I can think of is Eboue-Toure-Song-Silvestre. Which would leave Denilson/Diaby to partner Cesc in the midfield. Hopefully Sagna can get over his virus and maybe we could slot him at LB.
We were linked with moves for Xabi Alonso, Matthew Upson, and Ryan Babel. So you know what that means, they will all be on the squad next year.
That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow with any news and some Chelsea preview stuff.
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