Dagens Arsenal - 6 April 2009
Wenger
Arsenals franske tränare var på gott humör på dagens presskonferens om var optimistisk inför morgondagens Champions League-möte med Villareal: "I believe it is always good to win before you go into another big game. It lifts the confidence and belief of the team a bit more. We are on a good run and we feel we are consistent, which is a good basis to go into a Champions League game. In Europe you want total focus and we have learned to treat every game with a lot of respect and a lot of commitment.” Fransmannen ser också tillbaka på mötet lagen emellan 2006 då Arsenal nätt och jämt lyckades vinna: "We have also learned from our 2006 semi-final that with Villarreal you face a tough game and that is why we prepare ourselves to be at our best." Wenger berättar också att den väldigt snöpliga förlusten i Champions League mot Liverpool förra säsongen fortfarande irriterar honom: "We were the better team over the two legs. I feel that we were guilty of not being focused when we scored the second goal in the second leg and we paid for that. We were a bit unlucky too because we should have got a blatant penalty on Hleb in the first game at Emirates Stadium and there was no blatant penalty on Babel in the second leg."
Avslutningsvis talar Wenger om de kontraktsförhandlingar som nu förs med några av klubbens spelare. Ett antal av Arsenals större profiler förhandlar nu med klubben men Wenger vill hellre fokusera på matcherna som kommer än kontraktsförhandlingar: "My thinking is that we focus completely on the short term and not long term. We have such important targets in front of us that we have to show maturity and get rid of all the talks which are not helping us to win the games. We have to because we play every three days and we cannot sit around with players. It does not affect anything, because we can always talk to the agents, but I believe when a player comes back from an away game you do not want to be sitting around the desk at eight o'clock in the morning.”
Spelarna
Emmanuel Adebayor är nu tillbaka med besked. Togolesen som stod för ett mål för Togo och två stycken för Arsenal sedan hans comeback berättar nu att han och laget är redo att ta hem minst en trofé i år: "As a player, you always dream of winning things. When I joined this club, I was told by most of my friends and team-mates that I had a great chance of winning something. But for the last three years I have gone on holiday having not won a trophy and with an empty heart. Now it's the time to achieve things. Maybe I want it more than the others, I don't know. We all have a desire to achieve things and that's the most important thing. There are always players who are more happy than others when you win things, that's normal, but the desire is there for everyone."
Backary Sagna tror även han att Arsenal kan ta hem någon titel i år, och varför inte Champions League frågar sig fransmannen: "You just have to enjoy yourself on the pitch. We trust each other, we are giving everything - sometimes it works, sometimes not, but at the moment we are working as a team. Everyone is confident we can win something this season and can go very far. Our form is back, our confidence is really high and we know we can go all the way in the Champions League. I know we can go very far in the Champions League and we will try our utmost to do it."
Ännu en fransman talar om den svåra uppgift som väntar Arsenal i Champions League. Mikael Silvestre berättar att Villareal inte ska tas som en enkel motståndare: "It won't be easy. The only team we knew already was Porto, from the group stage, but when you get to the last eight, you know every team is capable of beating any other. I think it's a good draw for us though, because we can't say that Villarreal are the biggest side we could get. But the talking doesn't matter, we have to show it on the pitch, and just win. No matter how we do it, we need to get through to the semis.”
Skadeläget
Arsenal har nu bekräftat att Van Persie kommer att missa första matchen mot Villareal. Holländaren plockade som bekant upp en ljumskskada under landslagsuppehållet och får alltså nöja sig med att sitta på läktaren under första mötet. Även Diaby och Eduardo kommer missa mötet efter skador som de drog på sig under landslagsuppehållet.
Positivare nyheter är det med Theo Walcott och Samir Nasri som båda har inkluderats i den trupp Arsène Wenger offentliggjort. Walcott fick en hel del smällar mot Manchester city och sågs med en ispåse på det högra knät efter matchen medan Nasri dragits med influensa. Angående Tomas Rosicky ska tjecken enligt uppgifter spela en match med reservlaget på torsdag. Får den lille mozart inga bekymmer efter den matchen kan vi nog räkna med att se honom spela i A-laget inom två och en halv vecka.
Old Guns
Robert Pires har inför mötet med Arsenal talat om den smärta han kände av att bli utbytt efter 20 minuter i Champions League finalen. Wenger svarar nu på detta med att berätta om det svåra beslutet: "I feel sorry for having done it, sorry for him. But I had to take one offensive player out without taking Thierry Henry out because we had to play on the counter-attack. You keep your strongest, quickest player in the team on the pitch. Maybe I regret it, it’s very difficult to say. We were left with Hleb and Fabregas, who were offensive, Ljungberg as well – then Gilberto.” Oavsett Pires kritik så kommer han med största säkerhet få ett fantastiskt välkomnande på Emirates Stadium i returmötet.
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