Standard Liege Preview

By: Martin | September 15th, 2009

Well, before we get to the preview, Adebayor looks to be in trouble. He’s facing a 3-match ban for violent conduct for stomping van Persie’s face, and could be facing an additional ban for inciting the Arsenal supporters at the Eastlands. Referee Mark Clattenberg said that he didn’t see the van Persie incident, but that if he had, he would have sent Adebayor off. We’ll see what happens, but as I’ve said, what he did was malicious, dangerous, and unsporting, and he deserves a ban of at least 3 matches.

Anyway, onto tomorrow’s Champions League matchup with Standard Liege. It’s a short hop across the channel to Belgium, so travel and jetlag shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Although Standard is currently the defending Belgian First Division Champions, they currently sit 5th in the table through 6 games. They’ve lost several top quality players in the past few seasons as Marouane Fellaini left for Everton and Oguchi Onyewu left for AC Milan. Their captain and best player (and rumored Liverpool target) Steven Defour is out of the match with a broken foot, and midfield hard man Axel Witsel is out due to suspension (UPDATE: Apparently I may be wrong about this–I was under the impression Witsel’s suspension applied to European competitions, but the Mirror is reporting that it only applies to Belgian domestic matches). Their fans aren’t known for being particularly boisterous or intimidating.

To put it simply, Champions League away matches don’t get any easier than this, and anything short of 3 points will be a massive disappointment. Given our fixture congestion, we need to win these early group stage matches so we can rotate the squad a little bit later in the fall and still make it to the knockout stages. This is particularly true given that our last group stage match is against Olympiakos in Athens, which is always a tricky fixture and one I’d just as soon not need to win to move on.

Anyway, this should be a good chance for us to break our 2-match losing streak and get some good feelings going around the Emirates again.

The injury news isn’t great–Robin van Persie is out with a knee injury, Denilson has a sore back, and Almunia has a chest infection. Theo Walcott is still not fit enough to play, and hasn’t travelled with the team. Combined with the existing injuries to Nasri, Vela, Djourou, Fabianski, and Arshavin, that really leaves us with pretty much a bare bones squad. Vito Mannone will make his second senior start in goal, and depending on how fit he is, we could see Rosicky make his first start in some time as well.

My best guess at a lineup:

Mannone

Sagna-Gallas-Vermaelen-Clichy

Rosicky-Song-Fabregas-Diaby

Bendtner-Eduardo

It wouldn’t entirely surprise me to see a little more squad rotation than that, either. Guys like Traore, Ramsey, Wilshere, Gibbs, Eboue, or even (gulp) Silvestre could see some action as Wenger tries to rest some players and avoid more injury, although you’d have to think all those guys will be seeing action in the Carling Cup fixture next week.

Anyway, here’s to 3 points and no injuries. I’ll be DVRing it so I won’t be watching it live, but I’ll go ahead and put up a game thread tomorrow so those of you that are can leave your thoughts.

Come on Arsenal.