Friday, 23 September 2011

Bolton Wanderers (H)

After a brief scare on Wednesday night, it was nice to see our young guns come back to boss the second half against Shrewsbury. Kieran Gibbs equalised with his first goal and a great header at that, much to the delight of the 45,000 fans who bothered to turn up. The stats people were flicking through their books after Oxlade scored his first goal for us making it two Englishmen in one game, a rarity for us. It was also good to see Benayoun score his first and the game was dead.



Talking of Benayoun, it appears he will be out for tomorrows match against Bolton. However in better news it looks as if Ramsey and Song are fit and ready to start along with the majority of the team who played in the poor defeat at Blackburn. So the usual formation with RVP upfront on his own supported on the wings by Walcott and Gervinho. In the middle, Song, Ramey and Arteta. We really need to pull a result out of the bag tomorrow and I do mean REALLY. Bolton sit two places below us in the table but beat Aston Villa 2-0 away midweek.



So in terms of threat their leading scorer so far this season is suspended so can't play luckily. But they still have dangerous players in the forms of Davies, Tuncay, Petrov and Reo-Coker. They can be a physical team and we'll need to be ready for this, but I'm hopeful that Song in the Midfield will provide some power. Obvious Bolton's usually solid defence has wobbled so far this season and I'm hopeful we can exploit that.

So before I leave my prediction I just wanted to say a few things about Arsene Wenger and his press conference today. He again seemed quite snappy and when questioned about bringing in a new coach he was very dismissive. It was rumoured that Bergkamp was being brought in much to my delight (I'm a bit of a fan!) but Wenger also dismissed this saying he doesn't need help. For now I'm keeping the faith and I think he can pull us out but the longer this poor form continues the more pressure he will be under.

Enjoy your weekend, the weather looks good, well here it does anyway and COYG!

Prediction: Arsenal 2-1 Bolton