Leyton Orient vs. The Arsenal: The Real North London Derby.

Good Afternoon, you beautiful people! It’s been 3 nights since we undid Barcelona – hope the hangovers are gone! It’s been quite a week, hasn’t it? First the magical night at The Emirates, and all the talk about the Quadr Quintuple that came along with it. And then (C)Ashley skied his penalty, before a Manchester United reject ended their FA Cup hopes. I noticed Johnny Heitinga bumping into (C)Ashley as the both of them walked to their respective duties, in real time, and thought it was just an honest mistake. Replays showed Johnny had every intention of it, and that might have put (C)Ashley off. If that didn’t, then the Everton faithful chanting Cheryl’s name as he ran up for the kick, must have.

LEGEND!

Wojciech Szczesny went on a little spree, tweeting puns of (C)Ashley’s missed penalty. He asked Twitterverse on guesses as to where, or what, or who, (C)Ashely was aiming for. 5 minutes later, he went all Supermanly and talked about ‘was it a plane?!’. Sian Macalarny cried out loud for Wojciech to be knighted, and I was dead set on getting his name tattooed on me. What a character. He talks about him wanted to be our Number One for the next decade, he will be for more than that, I’ll tell you that. What. A. Legend.

That means Chelsea FC are out and Everton are through, worth keeping in mind that they’re still one round behind us.

Couldn’t bother with the couple of games after that, but I was sorta kinda sorta looking forward to the United-Crawley game. I was a little confident-ish about Crawley getting a result out of this one, considering Fergie would play a second-string side, and they’d be… shit. Besides, it is the FA Cup. The cup of dreams and yada yada yada.

Not gonna dwell too much into that, cuz it was a dire game of football. Crawley were shit. United were worse. It was funneh, however, reading tweets about Wes Brown finally finding his feet against a club of a suitable level. Bebe and Obertan not getting a game at Crawley. Arseblog gave a priceless one about Bebe’s 7.5m move to United being investigated by the Interpol.

Rooney was brought on at half-time, probably to boost his goal-scoring stat… Or the lack of it. All he did was get a yellow card. Everybody! On the count of three! R-O-F-L-M-F-A-O!

So yes, let’s move on. We travel to Brisbane road to play Leyton Orient tonight. Haven’t got much of a clue about The O’s, but I do know they’re *checks table* 11th in the League One. Frankly, I’m convinced that it wouldn’t matter if you’re playing a team who could bloody well be struggling in the Championship or the League One, cuz the cup games would instill a different mindset, and they could actually give you a game. Leeds and Huddersfield were flying high in respective leagues, and gave us a good game. They were both at The Emirates. This one’s at the Matchroom Stadium. They’ve also got Scott McGleish, top-scorer of the cup so far with 6 goals in 3 games. Just saying.

All that said, I’d expect our start quartet in Robin, Cesc, Jack and Samir, to be rested. Read bits here and there about Theo nursing a minor injury, so he’ll be rested as well, along with Johan Djourou. I’ll be expecting this line-up:

Wojciech Szczesny (LEGEND), Sagna Squillaci Kozzer Gibbs (Clichy), Song Denilson Rosicky, Arshavin Chamakh Bendtner.

I may very well be wrong with my prediction here; I’ve gone to be too liberal with the changes. Jack could play, but he’ll surely be brought off to allow him some rest. I think Kieran is fit, so he’ll come in at left-back, simply because Clichy would need rest and Kieran wouldn’t get a game otherwise. The other changes speak for themselves.

I’m going for a routine 4-0 win. Yes, there’s every danger of us playing like United as they did last night, but we’ve come into this game with a win over the second best team in the world (har har har). Complacency could be the only opposition we face tonight. That aside, I’m backing NB52 a score a few, which means I’ll have to wear his shirt out for dinner later on. Oh and give Chamakh a goal as well, that poor kid.

Win tonight, and the visualizations of a Quadr Quintuple will materialize further. Lose tonight (KNOCKING ON EVERY PIECE OF WOOD IN THE HOUSE) and the tabloids will go straight for us. The win tonight would be the icing on a delicious fucking cake.

We play Stoke on Wednesday, and a win then would mean we’ll go within one point of United, with them facing their next three games away from home, and their away record speaks for itself. It’s all about keeping the pressure on them. You can count on us to lose a 4 goal lead. But you can count on United to lose a 7 point lead. A win on Wednesday would be that cherry on the icing of the cake.

Robin talked about how he loved The Arsenal, and not for the first time, says how he only wants to win trophies with and for us. Approve.

Talk about DNA.

Let’s take a minute here to talk about The Curious Case of Thomas Vermaelen. Well, he’s alive; spotted at The Emirates a few times recently. His comeback has been postponed a few times and he’s still a few weeks from his return. I’ll be straight up with you; his absence hasn’t been bothering me as much after Djouscielny’s partnership. I mean, sure, if one of them’s injured (KNOOOOOOOCKKKKKKKKKKK ONNNNNN WOOOOOOOOOOOOD) we’ll have to resort to The Man in the Number Eighteen Shirt.

The Curious Case of Thomas Vermaelen.

So when Thomas is (finally) fit, I’d beg to differ with the popular belief of him walking straight back into the first eleven. It’d be ridiculously harsh on Djouscielny, and Thomas is… well… I don’t know… I really don’t. It’ll all depend on Arsene’s evaluation of Thomas’ performances in the training sessions.

For now though, it’s Squillaci and Kozzer. For Stoke, it’ll be Djouscielny. Come what may, and Come On You Gunners!

~ by youbeautyyy on February 20, 2011.