Weekend Update – Champions League Preview

By: travis | September 16th, 2008

Another weekend saw another good result. Hard to find a lot of things to complain about after taking down Blackburn, thanks to Theo, Adebayor, and RvP – among others. Nice to see Walcott remain fairly grounded after his hat trick against Croatia. His mazy run set up van Persie’s goal, while Adebayor netted a treble. Of note, Jack Wilshere became the youngest player to make a league appearance for Arsenal, breaking the team record owned my Cesc Fabregas.

Back to the game – there were definite lapses at the back that will be magnified as the season goes on. Gallas and Toure can be very unconvincing at times. It’ll be interesting to see the difference that Silvestre might make if he plays in the middle. For now, going up against teams like Bolton and Blackburn there isn’t much reason for worry.

However, when it comes to crunch time, the likes of Berbatov, Torres, Gerrard, and others will make poor defending pay. It’s nice to erase the memory of Fulham and that seems like such a long time ago, that a strong sense of optimism can prevail – at least for now.

Highlights available here from 101greatgoals.

With that aside, it’s an important game tomorrow against Dynamo Kiev (or Kyiv). The team has a rich history in the Soviet Union/Ukraine, and has been known to produce a number of good players here and there – Andriy Shevchenko came through the youth system – although it lacks any “big name” players right now, it’ll no doubt be a tricky fixture.

The boss has only made one change from the weekend, bringing in the young Mexican striker Carlos Vela in for Kieran Gibbs. Nasri’s still out, along with Silvestre. Neither a huge concern, as Emmanuel Eboue and Gael Clichy both made the trip. That’s a relief, considering the likes of Traore starting in the backline would concern me a bit more.

I’ll admit that it’s hard to know what to expect from Kyiv. It’s no doubt that a big team such as Arsenal comes in as the favorite, but by no means will this match be a walk in the park. I’ll hopefully have a liveblog up and running for the game tomorrow. Stay tuned for me, and leave your thoughts on the match below.