Five Points at the Top of the Table

By: Dan | February 13th, 2008

After Manchester United tied Tottenham and lost the Manchester derby, Arsenal has cruised to the top of the league in style. Monday’s 2-0 win against Blackburn was not quite the best of Arsenal, but the squad also faced a massive list of injuries. The team managed to take advantage of Manchester United’s loss (based on his last two performances, how can anyone call Christiano Ronaldo the best player in the world) and the tie between Chelsea and Liverpool, moving into a fantastic position to close out the last twelve games.

Match Highlights (Arsenal-Blackburn 2-0)

Vitally, I think that everyone at Arsenal is cautiously optimistic. There are been many player and manager interviews in the past few days, and everyone seems to be taking the season one game at a time.

Wenger says:

“There’s still a long, long way to go. You could see yesterday with the results, this league is very tight - the day you are not at your best you can lose to anybody. We had a great start, the first 20 minutes were outstanding and when we dropped the pace Blackburn came into it, but we had a good defensive performance and they didn’t create many chances.”

I feel we have handled the pressure very well each time this year when we’ve had our backs to the wall. There’s still a long way to go. As soon as you’re not at your best at the top, you can drop points. We have seen that over the weekend, but we are in a good position and we believe we can do it. We’ll fight until the last minute of the championship.”

Smart words to bear in mind as the season wraps up, particularly with Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United still to play.

Interestingly, Adebayor has said that one of the keys to his success this season is Thierry Henry.

“Thierry to me is like a big brother. He calls me and we have a lot of chats. He believes in my strength and my quality so I just want to thank him a lot because he helped me out a lot. A lot of times he sends me messages saying that I may have scored 15 or 16 but I know you can score more if you concentrate in every game.”

Henry has mentioned his interest in returning to Arsenal after his playing career, and he seems to be a positive influence. One thing for sure is that he isn’t going to Newcastle. Oh, and Wenger sure as hell isn’t going to Barcelona. Seriously, these rumors are just ludicrous.

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But, more importantly, the FA Cup match against Manchester United at Old Traford is coming up on Saturday. Fortunately we should actually have a team, as both the Ivory coast men can play and Rosicky may be ready. Of course, it is way too much to hope for Robin van Persie.

I’m not totally sure how to feel about this game. The FA Cup is fantastic, and a loss to Manchester United would be unpleasant, but we have the Premier League and Champions League to stay focused on. Last season we were overstretched and collapsed in every competition at around this point in the season, and I couldn’t stand that to happen again. Obviously I’ll support Arsenal on Saturday, but a loss would be about as important as the one to Tottenham in the Carling Cup. It would be nice to prove Arsenal’s superiority over Manchester United with a solid win though.

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