Arsene Wenger had a bad experience with Ivory Cosat last time in the African Cup. He asked the permission to play 2 players in an FA Cup match which would delay their international release for like a day or so, and although they were not going to start any fitness tests only after 2 days, they still refused and Wenger had to pull Manu and Kolo out of the squad. So now he says he wont even bother asking them anything and that he would just stop using the players from the 5th of Jan 2008.
Here is his full rant, eh, interview.. (After the jump)“They are so stubborn that there is no point in even speaking to them, They will go at the beginning of January. They have to be available for their country 15 days before the start of the tournament.
Before the last tournament we tried to negotiate a later release date with the Ivory Coast, but we had no success so we won’t try this time. We will give them the players when they are due, and won’t even speak to the Ivorian federation about it.
We were so disappointed with their attitude last time. We had to pull Manu and Kolo out of the 2006 FA Cup game against Cardiff an hour before kick-off because the Ivory Coast were adamant they had to join up, even though they were only going to be sitting in a hotel room in Paris doing nothing.
Eboué had not played many games back then, so it would have been good for him to play in the FA Cup tie. But they wanted to meet up on a Saturday night, and even though our game was early that day they refused to give us permission to play them.
This was not even to go to Africa, but to go to Paris, where they would not even start fitness tests until the Monday. They just sat in the hotel that weekend, and I said to them ‘let’s be a little bit logical here’ – but it was impossible.
It is not the players’ fault at all, but the Ivory Coast management were very stubborn, and unnecessarily so because it would have been better for their preparation. So this time I will count them out of action from about January 5th until approximately the middle of February.”
Well, first of all a nice goal from Fabregas with the help of Eboue, Adebayor and Sagna. Arsenal returned to the fired up mode in the start of the second half, they played well, but to be honest Almunia was not so confident but he did save us from some nice shots but still shakey performance.
The second Manchester United goal scored by Ronaldo was a result of a really nice Saha pass to Evra and a really bad defending job by Arsenal’s defence line. In the end gallas saved us in an amazing crazy goal.
I expected a 2-1 victory for Arsenal and they could’ve got that result, am not happy withh all arsene wenger’s substitutes I mean if they work with other teams that doesn’t mean it should always work.
Ok, so we all saw that Arsenal was denied a penalty, thats not my problem my problem is that we started all fired up but eventually we just couldn’t keep the ball with us, and couldn’t handle is well enough to keep building up attacks and scoring a goal. Although we saw Gallas had a nice try and some shot here and there. Ofcourse Manchester played well but the goal is clearly a lucky goal its not because Rooney was clever or in control.
Nobody wants to see the goal again ofcourse but, here is the goal anyway, CLICK HERE.
Arsenal Substitutes:
1 Lehmann
8 Diarra
19 Silva
32 Walcott
9 Da Silva
Manchester United Starting Line-ups:
1 Van der Sar
3 Evra
6 Brown
5 Ferdinand
15 Vidic
7 Ronaldo
8 Anderson
11 Giggs
4 Hargreaves
32 Tevez
10 Rooney
Manchester United Substitutes:
29 Kuszczak
22 O’Shea
17 Nani
16 Carrick
9 Saha
Arsenal will be playing their 11th match in the league, being top of the table with 26 points, while Manchester United will be playing their 12th match second in the table with 26 points. Well, this is the awaited match since the start of the season, everybody says this is the real deal, this is the true test that will show how fragile those teams are, yes its a test for both teams because to be honest they are the only two teams that has a chance in winning the league, those not only my words its fergie’s too. Well although i don’t really care what he usually says but this time he is right, only in this point, it true those teams are the only ones who can actually do it.
Statistically speaking, Premier League’s best attack (Arsenal: 22 goals scored) is playing against the best defence (Man Utd: 4 goals conceded), Arsenal averages 2.20 goals per game while Man Utd avergaes 1.73 goals.
We shouldn’t forget also that last season Arsenal won both games against Manchester United in the league. There are no new injuries reported for both teams, evra is fit and expected to feature in the match.
Arsenal will be playing tonight their 3rd match in Champions League Group H, they have already won their first 2 matches so they have a solid 6 points, they will be facing SK Slavia Prague who are in 3rd place with 3 points.
I don’t believe that this game will be as easy as we expect, especially after seeing how Arsenal played against Bolton this week, yes we won but after we struggled though-out most of the match. Anyway I guess Slavia Prague will be so happy if they escaped with a 0-0 scoreline.
The Player i will be watching is Eduardo, let him show us he is worth playing for arsenal, in my book he still didn’t do it, I guess any Arsenal fan is not really that much happy with his game. But here is a chance to show his ability.
I expect a scoreline of 1-0, yes I don’t expect that we will thrash Slavia Prague they are not really that easy team, they are the top in their league table.
Arsene Wenger had a bad experience with Ivory Cosat last time in the African Cup. He asked the permission to play 2 players in an FA Cup match which would delay their international release for like a day or so, and although they were not going to start any fitness tests only after 2 days, they still refused and Wenger had to pull Manu and Kolo out of the squad. So now he says he wont even bother asking them anything and that he would just stop using the players from the 5th of Jan 2008.
Arsenal will be playing their 11th match in the league, being top of the table with 26 points, while Manchester United will be playing their 12th match second in the table with 26 points. Well, this is the awaited match since the start of the season, everybody says this is the real deal, this is the true test that will show how fragile those teams are, yes its a test for both teams because to be honest they are the only two teams that has a chance in winning the league, those not only my words its fergie’s too. Well although i don’t really care what he usually says but this time he is right, only in this point, it true those teams are the only ones who can actually do it.
Arsenal will be playing tonight their 3rd match in Champions League Group H, they have already won their first 2 matches so they have a solid 6 points, they will be facing SK Slavia Prague who are in 3rd place with 3 points.