Arsenal will be facing off against Ipswich Town tomorrow night in the second leg of a Carling Cup semifinal. The first leg, played at Portman Road, saw the Gunners fall 1-0 to the Championship side. Arsene Wenger knows he is terribly close to his first trophy since 2005 but his side will need to beat Ipswich by two goals or more tomorrow at the Emirates if he hopes to hoist the League Cup trophy.
It will be very interesting to see who Wenger will start tomorrow. He usually gives the kids a run in the Carling Cup, but will he when a chance at the final is at stake? The starting eleven tomorrow will tell us how much Wenger really cares about the tournament. Of course, the League Cup is the fourth most prestigious competition Arsenal are in at the moment, but how desperate is Wenger to get his hands on another trophy?
Now onto some transfer news and rumours. Some reports have said that Tottenham defender Jonathan Woodgate will leave Spurs and join Arsenal. Well, Spurs manager Harry Redknapp had this to say about the rumours:
“Is he going to Arsenal? No, not a chance. We wouldn’t let him go to Arsenal. I think they are after taking Sol Campbell back again.” The Sol Campbell comment was obviously a joke, but the part about Woodgate clearly wasn’t. Doesn’t look like Spurs are going to give us any defensive help this month.
Arsene Wenger have confirmed that Arsenal are trying to make a move for Southhampton attacker Alex Chamberlain. Chamberlain is a highly touted youngster who has been prized by many Premier League clubs for some time. He is one of the most promising English players in football and it looks like the Gunners have the upper hand in negotiations.
Wenger: “We will try now. We need an agreement with Southampton.
“We need an agreement with the player, and we are not the only ones on the case.
“But we try as hard as we can as I like him as a player.”
Chamberlain’s father, Alex, is a former England player and he had this to say:
“Arsenal, with the manager there, the way they play and how they develop players I think they are the ideal choice.”
“I am his dad. I’ve worked with both. They’ve both got different attributes. Theo has already played 100 Premier League games for Arsenal, played for England and has scored a hat-trick. He’s a really good player.”
Let’s get back to the players currently in the squad. Robin Van Persie is still very joyous about getting his first hat trick as an Arsenal player. He says that it is a day he thought would never come. Here’s what he had to say:
“It means a lot because I’ve been here a long time. I had come so close, so many times I had scored two goals and then I hit the bar or the post. I was starting to think: ‘why can I not score a hat-trick? Last week it happened again against West Ham, I scored two goals and then hit the post, so I started to sort of accept it a little bit. The moment when you accept it, that’s when you score one.
“It’s not just me who scored. It’s like a team effort. You have the one with the assist, the one before the assist and the one who scores, in between you have the guy who’s making the run for me. We all love to play with each other and we all enjoy our football. Of course there is pressure, because you want to win the title and you want to achieve things together, but on the football side of it we are enjoying ourselves.
“If we beat Ipswich we will have one game to play to have a trophy and if we have that one, then it’s out of the way. I believe that can give us a lot of confidence as well, just to lift that trophy and get that feeling together. The fans start to believe and, from that moment we can really go for it.”
