Ready, Szczesny, go!

With West Ham done and dusted, we can now turn our attentions to tomorrow evening's FA Cup replay in Leeds. With that attention, I bring those travelling to "God's own country"- yeah right!- a public service announcement. Without guitars. If you are travelling to the game, then please try and get there as early as possible. There are major roadworks going on around in the surrounding areas and, according to the West Yorkshire police force, there have been a few instances of away fans being late for kick-off. So try and make sure that this isn't you tomorrow night.

Arsène has already spoken of how the side will be rotated tomorrow night. I guess we have to sit back and hope that it's not rotated to the degree that saw us struggling in the two cup ties played last week. One player who will not be rotated out, however, is the younger "Pole in Goal", Wojciech Szczesny who is making a quietly impressive start to his Arsenal career. The nature of which seems a little at odds with the noises he was making a few months ago. I suppose a new contract and a few first team appearances will do that for you. That isn't a criticism, by the way. I think if I was Wojciech, watching Almunia throw one in after the other, I would have been a lot less restrained. Moreover, given a chance he's come in and shown that he is a goalkeeper of some ability. Anyway, he's been talking to Arsenal.com and had the following to say about his season so far,

"I treat every single game as my chance, I just want to do my best and leave the decisions to the manager.
 
"The manager shows faith in me, so I believe I am ready. Any time I get a chance I will try to prove to him I am ready.
 
"We have not conceded a lot of goals recently. We have done pretty well in the Premier League. It has the look of a decent back four and we just want to keep it going with as many clean sheets as possible."

Can't argue with any of that and I'm not going to try. It's been a curious experience watching Arsenal with "Roger" (I'll allow myself this, one, indulgence) between the sticks. The cloud of dread everytime a cross is slung in, or a set piece taken anywhere near our goal, has evaporated. And no wonder when you watch our keeper rising to confidently pluck the latest missile out of the air. As I've said before, his distribution is another matter, but I don't see that as a major problem really. I talked about the importance of van Persie to our attack yesterday, but what was just as important was the first goal coming so early. Equally important, then, had to be that Szczesny save from Cole which preserved that early advantage.

So that's him. What of the rest of them? Well, having expressed the hope that we might get young Aaron Ramsey's first appearance in an Arsenal shirt since last February (or the club's summer photocall, for all you lovely little pedants out there) prior to the last two cup matches and seeing absolutely nothing of him, I'm going to keep my mouth shut on that front. I'm sure there will be more news regarding the squad/ team tomorrow. But we will be minus Fabianski, Squillaci, Diaby and, of course, Vermaelen tomorrow night.

Ah yes, Vermaelen. The cure for what ails him has been deemed to be the removal of a tendon next to the Achilles. The boss has said that it is a "procedure", rather than surgery. I'm not sure why he was so keen to make this distinction; I suppose the word surgery conjures up all sorts of images and none them particularly good. Anyway, they are- "they" being the Arsenal medical staff- are "very optimistic" that this..."procedure" will have Vermaelen back amongst the Hunter-Killers of the Arsenal first team within weeks. The player himself is said to be targetting the first leg of the Barcelona tie on February 16. According to Arsène, the first leg of the Barcelona tie is not an "unrealistic target" as the player should take between 4-6 weeks to recover. Although he did point out that, like Aaron Ramsey, having been out for such a long while the player will need games to get back to his top level.

It'd certainly be a massive boost to have him back in the starting line up for that one, wouldn't it?

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