Rangers Preview/Gamethread (UPDATED with Arsenal lineup)

By: Martin | August 2nd, 2009

Well, we’re back in action in the Emirates Cup today against Scottish champions Rangers. If we win, then we will hold the ultra-prestigious Emirates Cup for the season.

I imagine we’ll probably see many of the same players we saw yesterday, but don’t be surprised if some of the players who came on as late substitutes yesterday (Clichy, Cesc, Arshavin) start on the pitch and play most of the match today. We also didn’t see Vermaelan or Song yesterday, so they could be involved today. On the subject of Vermaelen, for those who care about such things, the official website is not listing a number for him and Wikipedia is showing him as wearing Kolo Toure’s vacated number 5 this season. If he plays it will be interesting to see what number is on his back.

Here’s my best guess at a lineup:

Almunia

Sagna-Vermaelen-Gallas-Clichy

Wilshere-Cesc-Song-Rosicky

Arshavin-Eduardo

UPDATE:Here’s the actual lineup:

Almunia

Eboue-Gallas-Silvestre-Clichy

Wilshere-Cesc-Song-Merida

Arshavin-Eduardo

But who knows, really. Hopefully we’ll put in another good showing, because despite some obvious rust and poor finishing (including a good chance wasted by my boy St. Nick), I thought we actually looked quite good yesterday. We dominated the match, controlling possession and moving the ball around quite well. Atletico is no pushover, either–this is a team we could face in the Champions League qualifier. Some specific thoughts:

1. First, how awful were the American announcers? They didn’t really seem to know what they were talking about, and the way they were going over the top to “correctly” pronounce everyone’s name was pretty excruciating. I’m all for trying to get it right, but Jack Wilshere, for example, is from Hertfordshire, not Senegal–therefore, his name is pronounced “Will-sure.” At one point they pronounced his name “Wheel-shay-ray.” When the clubs came out and they were talking about the lineups and announcing our backline, I got really excited because I thought we had signed someone new that I hadn’t heard about. Then I realized they were just over-pronouncing Traore and Djourou. On the plus side, if we’ve got announcers that blather on about nothing and have no clue what’s going on, maybe soccer really has finally arrived as a major American sport on par with baseball and football.

2. Wilshere. Hoo boy. I told Travis a week or so ago that I loved Wilshere for the future, but that I couldn’t see him playing any significant role for us this season. But if he plays like he plays yesterday, I don’t know how you can keep him out of first-team action. For all our complaining about how we need to bring in this player or that player, consider that we have Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott, Song, Nasri, and Cesc–six absolutely fantastic young midfielders, aged, respectively, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, and 22. Most other clubs, even some of Europe’s top clubs, would kill to have even one or two young midfielders of that kind of quality.

3. I think the idea of human cloning is a dangerous, unethical, immoral attempt by human beings to play God. But that being said, if I could clone Andrei Arshavin, . . . I would totally do that shit.

4. Forget what I said a couple of days ago about left-wing being wide open for who would play while Nasri is out. If Rosicky is healthy, the job’s his, and if he could somehow stay healthy, I’m not even sure Nasri gets the job when he comes back. He looked really good in 45 minutes yesterday.

5. Hopefully it’s just rust, but Clichy still looks like a different player than the guy who lit it up down the left for us in the 2007-2008 season. It was his first action this summer, but Clichy looked slow and tentative yesterday. In contrast to Traore, who showed good aggressiveness and great recovery speed. I know it’s heresy and you guys will jump all over me, but if Clichy doesn’t get back into game shape over the next couple of weeks, I think we might have a position battle on our hands.