Flash Past - Swansea v Arsenal

Sunshine Fellas!

Its a fabulous Friday and I always get excited as it is the last day of working days. It is yet another weekend with full of football action and especially Arsenal! I'm writing this after Arsenal scraped through a win against West Brom in 3rd round of COC.. Lucky us :) Let's talk about our upcoming game this weekend against Swansea at Liberty Stadium. But first, lets flash past a season back and remind ourselves of some good things which happened.

Lineup Then:

Swansea

Starting XI : Vorm, Rangel, Williams, Monk, Davies, Britton, de Guzman, Ki, Dyer, Hernandez, Michu

Subs : Tremmel, Bartley, Tiendalli, Lamah, Routledge, Moore, Shechter

Arsenal

Starting XI : Fabianski, Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Arteta, Diaby, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Cazorla, Walcott, Giroud

Subs : Szczesny, Gibbs, Vermaelen, Coquelin, Ramsey, Rosicky, Gervinho

Blast from the Past:

Team returned with a win at Allianz arena before meeting the swans at Liberty Stadium. Arsenal managed to win the game 2-0 which marked the first goal for Monreal and a late goal by Gervinho assisted by Ramsey both coming as a sub. It was thought a comeback for Gervinho and he did well indeed with a string of good performances until the end of the season. 

Highlights of the match which covers the important segments that happened in the game is here

Current Mood:

Swansea have been literally in a poor form starting off the league with two successive defeats and managed to get 2 wins in last 3 PL games. And they have lost to a championship side in COC just two nights before and they are yet to win a home game this season in the Premier League.

Arsenal are in a fantastic winning streak in all competitions winning last 8 of them and most importantly the last 11 away games because it is gonna be another away game this weekend. If the team keeps playing the way they have, they can set the field on fire

Predicted Lineup:

Swansea

Swansea were coc title defenders and they made plenty of changes in their last match against Birmingham which could have been a reason for their early exit in the cup competition. They will field a stronger XI as they will try to get the first home win this season in the Premier League and get the momentum running.

Arsenal

Arsène has rested all the first teamers barring Per and Arteta in last match against West Brom which was a necessity. Now, I expect them to feature along with first team players returning to action which means the line up will be something like this

Talismen:

Swansea : Michu is the man. He had a poor start to the season along with his team but he is getting his touch back and could prove vital for the Swans in the upcoming match. He can simply threaten our defense but I still believe our men can get hold of him or we can leave that job to the new bald guy arrived from Merseyside this summer :D

Arsenal : It is gonna be Ramsey with no doubts so ever. People may say Özil will be the key figure but there is reason I chose Ramsey. He is in a sizzling form of scoring goals and not only that but he runs all over the pitch to retrieve the ball back when it is lost, putting in tackles and bossing the midfield.

For a fact, Ramsey has successfully completed 22 tackles this season more than Fellaini and Carrick combined(21)

Scoreline Prediction:

2-1 to The Arsenal!! Giroud to score first and Özil to open his account for the Gunners!

Come on you Gunners!

Wish the team all the luck :)

Adieu!!

Flash Past I

Morning all,

From today, I would like to start this series called ‘Flash Past’ which will be covering the match preview of Arsenal games. Now you may ask ‘What makes it different from other previews?’ Well, I will try to make it to do so as much as I can and I will leave the judgment to you guys J

My First Match preview will be for West Bromwich Albion v Arsenal in Capital One Cup. We play against West Brom at The Hawthorns in 3^rd round of the ‘Capital One Cup’. Rewinding or Rather I should say Flashing past 4 seasons ago(2009-10), we met West Brom in the same round of the competition(talk about coincidence) on a Tuesday night 22^nd September 2009, which was then called as ‘Carling Cup’. Arsène Wenger named a very youngsters dominated 18 men squad for the fixture and I list them now as follows.

Squad for Carling Cup:

Wojciech Szczesny, James Shea, Philippe Senderos, Mikael Silvestre, Kieran Gibbs, Armand Traore, Kerrea Gilbert, Kyle Bartley, Mark Randall, Francis Coquelin, Craig Eastmond, Emmanuel Frimpong, Nacer Barazite, Aaron Ramsey, Gilles Sunu, Jack Wilshere, Carlos Vela, Sanchez Watt.

Among them, only six of them(bolded) are still in the Arsenal team and they have become regular starters now.

Lineup Then:

There were few interesting things that happened in the match. I will first list down the starting lineup and subs of Arsenal and West Brom.

Arsenal

Starting XI : Szczesny – Gilbert – Senderos – Gibbs – Silvestre(C) – Coquelin – Ramsey – Wilshere –Traore – Watt – Sunu

Subs : Shea – Bartley – Eastmond – Frimpong – Randall – Barazite – Vela

West Brom

Starting XI : Kiely – Olsson (C) – Barnett – Zuiverloon – Jara – Koren – Thomas –Moore – Dorrans – Teixeria – Cox

Subs : Carson – Meite – Martis – Mulumbu – Wood – Reid – Bednar

Blast from the Past:

Arsenal won the match 2-0 with goals from Watt and Vela. Watt became the 85^th debut goal scorer for Arsenal. Vela scored after coming off the bench in second half.Vermaelen was the 84^th debut goal scorer which came against Everton just a week before this match took place while Samir Na$ri was 83^rd also scoring against West Brom a season back.

Ex-Arsenal Winger Jerome Thomas was red carded before Half time for pushing Jack Wilshere. Both goals came for Arsenal in a span of 8 minutes in second half scoring in 68^th and 75^th minute.

You can watch the highlights of the goals of our last COC fixture with West Brom here.

                            

Capital One Cup History:

Arsenal have a poor record in COC history qualifying for finals 7 times having won it only twice whereas West Brom has made it thrice to the finals and won once way back in 1965-66 when it was a two-legged tie. You can go through the finals’ results of Arsenal and West Brom below.

Carling Cup

2010/11                Arsenal 1-2 Birmingham City

2006/07                Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal

Coca-Cola Cup

1992/93                Arsenal 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday

Littlewoods Cup

1987/88                Luton Town 3-2 Arsenal

1986/87                Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool *

The Football League Cup

1968/69                Swindon Town 3-1 Arsenal*

1967/68                Leeds United 1-0 Arsenal

The Football League Cup

1969/70                Manchester City 2-1 West Bromwich Albion*

1966/67                Queens Park Rangers 3-2 West Bromwich Albion

1965/66                West Bromwich Albion 1-2 West Ham United

                            West Bromwich Albion 4-1 West Ham United

Predicted Line-up:

On Wednesday, Arsène can again use the more younger side & also the players who have returned from injuries and use this COC as a testing platform and also as an opportunity to give a chance to Youngsters. Personally, I would like to watch Ryo play an entire match. I am also expecting Viviano, our GK loan signing of the summer to feature in the starting XI and also Monreal to get his first start of the season. As Wenger told, Wilshere will be rested. Giroud and Özil may also be rested.Frimpong, Arteta, Bendtner will fill in for each of them. It has been ages since he played football but expecting a decent performance from him. We can also expect our new Youth signing Semi Ajayi to feature in the starting line up. He scored on his debut against Blackburn and put up a solid performance in a 1-0 win against West Brom for youth team earlier this month.

Scoreline Prediction:

3-1 win for Arsenal as it has become some sort of a favorite score line to the team. Come on you Gunners!

Once again, I wish the team good luck and also for this series to continue without any hindrance. Please leave your comments below

Signing off!