Arsenal vs Blackburn
Venue: Emirates Stadium
K.O Time: 5:30PM Local Time

Thank the maker — the international break is over, and Arsenal is back.

After an international break that seemed much, much longer than 2 weeks, Arsenal square off against a Allardyce-less Blackburn. We faced them in the third game of the season back in August, and came away with a 2-1 win thanks to goals from Arshavin and Theo. Let’s hope for a repeat tomorrow.

Blackburn are in 13th, which is a mid-table position, but a closer look reveals they are in quite a bit more trouble than that. They are one of 4 teams on 33 points, and they are barely ahead of the other 3 on goal differential. And the 17th and 18th placed teams are on 32 points. So realistically, they are just one point clear of the drop, and are on a bad run of results since Allardyce was forced out. All indications are that they are in for a survival fight for the next couple of months. Hopefully we can make that situation a bit more desire with a good result tomorrow.

On the other side of the pitch, Blackburn have actually scored a fair amount of goals, and gotten them from a lot of different sources. Not a single player from Blackburn has scored more than 5 league goals this season, but 8 different players have scored 3 goals or more. There’s no real secret to their tactics — they like to hit you on the counterattack, they like to hoof it long and lump it into the box, and they love to try to score from set pieces — they have some huge, strong players who can jump high and head it hard, and that could be a real danger for us. We’ll need to try to make sure not to foul anywhere near the box, and when we do concede set pieces, we’ll have to make sure and mark our man and put a body on him when he goes up for the ball.

In team news, the injuries are the big question. Our long-term guys — Flaps, Wojo, Vermaelen, Djourou, Frimpong — are still out. In better news, Cesc, Theo, Song, and Diaby are back in the squad. van Persie and Bendtner are probably out — we’ll find out about them today. We’ll also find out about Ramsey, who apparently has a groin injury from international duty. No word yet on Gibbs, who had to come back from the U21s with an injury. We’re not entirely sure how fit those guys are and whether they will start, which makes a lot of our lineup up in the air. Here’s my best guess at a lineup:

                 Almunia

Sagna-Squillaci-Koscielny-Clichy

            Wilshere-Song

        Nasri-Cesc-Arshavin

              van Persie

Bench: Lehmann, Miquel, Gibbs, Eboue, Denilson, Diaby, Ramsey, Rosicky, Bendtner, Chamakh

Why can't Lehman start the game, huh? Well, we should win this, considering the number of big boys that are sure to play.

any links abeg

Almunia is an accident waiting to happen. Joke of a Keeper. Would have made a great anaestalogist.

Wow! Only 3 replies on an Arsenal match thread?

Can u blame dem 4 nat jega'ing thier time?

so switch47 dey parade chelsea thread.he culdnt even drop a comment here, smh,yeye boi

wenger please leave arsenal now.