A day offline thanks to the incompetence of a certain well-known Telecommunications company, just at the time when the ‘battle lines’ are being drawn (© The Daily Mail); another reason to not want Arsenal’s future to be Orange, as if any were needed. On the subject of The Daily Mail, there is one set of journalists who must have died and wondered if they had gone to Media Heaven (or Hell as it is more commonly known). They have been able to play all of their ‘trump’ cards in the space of forty eight hours; a bastion of Englishness under threat, dodgy Eastern European’s and the re-ignition of The Cold War, according to their latest report. Here they come riding on their Chargers in defence of a Club upon whom they have heaped oppobrium and scorn for the past eighteen months for not having enough English players in their starting line-up. It is The Crusades once more and I, for one, cannot help but have giggling fits at their brazen opportunism.

So to the transfer day drama; Arsene fibbed. He signed Lassanna Diarra; essentially a central midfielder but with enough versatility to play at Right Back apparently. It is a curious signing in many respects. Not because the player is without talent; the limited viewings I have had of him in action suggest he has the potential to be a very good player. The award of Chelsea’s Young Player Of The Year is a double edged sword; it is an accolade but they are not exactly noted for ‘blooding’ young players, evidence by his twenty one starts in two years at the Club. The oddity is the signing of a player whose positions are those which are well served at the Club; we have more Central Midfielders at the Club than can comfortably fit into a Hackney Cab with the Right Back situation not far behind. It has to be said that his signature has to signal the end of at least two players careers at Arsenal. A quick check of the squad shows that Gilberto, Diaby, Song, Flamini and Diarra are all fighting for the same place in the team. Likewise, Diarra is in competition with Eboue, Hoyte and I guess, Flamini for the Right Back position if Sagna is unfit. The simple maths of it all does not fit unless Arsene has other ideas for, say, Diaby or perhaps even concerns about his ongoing fitness.

More likely though, Song would be the one to make way for him, all things being equal, although perhaps Arsene has had an indication from Gilberto that he would be unwilling to continually sign one year contract extensions once his current contract gets to renewal time. If there are to be exits, and I think it inevitable, I suspect that it would be one of Flamini or Hoyte; the former because he wants regular first team action, something that is open to question in twelve months time and the latter because it simply cuts off the first team, full stop. It is a nice problem to have though and one which only time will tell was a sage move in the transfer market or if Arsene is developing GG’s old tendency to just buy lots of players for one position.

The key advantage that I can see, aside from the continued future planning, is that allows Arsene to fully exploit a policy of not rushing players back from injury, giving him breathing space in both positions to play Diarra should he so chose to allow that one extra game, as opposed to say putting a player back into the side earlier than he is comfortable with, risking a repetition of the setbacks suffered last season.

So to this afternoon’s game; Portsmouth come in decent form and will, I am sure, prove a stern test. Despite not beating either of United or Chelsea, they will have been bouyed not necessarily by the results but certainly their performances. However, this is a team that we have to set out to beat and be reasonably confident of doing so. Having said that, the defence will need to concentrate to control Muntari and Kanu but are capable of doing so. With the signing of Glen Johnson, it is expected that Lauren will play right midfield. This will mean that Rosicky faces a defensively competent opponent; however the question is whether or not Lauren’s legs can keep pace with the movement of the Arsenal midfield, injuries may have taken their toll on the player.

For Arsenal, no further news on Alex Hleb – that I have seen anyway – so I would assume that he will probably miss out. It makes the choice of team a little easier I guess, with the starting line-up almost picking itself until you get to the forward line. The defence will remain unchanged from midweek with neither Sagna nor Eboue apparently available. In midfield, it is too soon to expect Diarra to participate at any level. I would expect him to push for a place on the bench as early as the Tottenham game though. Up front is a real quandry. Whilst it is certain that RvP will start, it is a case of who with. It would be easy to look purely at Portsmouth and assume that they will have two big rough, tough, Centre Backs and be inclined to put Adebayor in there for muscle. However, Eduardo has more pace and is equally good, if not better in the air. Whether he plays better with RvP than Adebayor is debatable and probably down to lack of time together than anything else. A difficult choice but I think in this instance, I would be inclined to start with Adebayor and bring on Eduardo as an impact player although probably with about twenty to twenty five minutes to go, as opposed to the last fifteen. My starting line-up would be:

Almunia; Hoyte, Toure, Senderos, Clichy; Walcott, Fabregas, Gilberto, Rosicky; RvP, Adebayor

with a bench of

Fabianski, Flamini, Eduardo, Denilson, Bendtner

If Hleb is fit, then I would start him in place of Rosicky, dropping Denilson from the bench. Walcott has the pace to trouble Hreiddarsson on the right and I see no reason to change that irrespective of Hleb’s fitness. However, the Belorussian’s dribbling skills will trouble Lauren and Johnson more than perhaps Rosicky would. The key though is getting people in to the box; it is of little use having players who can work the wings if they do not have sufficient targets in the area. Wednesday night proved how well that can work; let us hope that the lessons have been learned.

Enjoy the match wherever you are watching it. ’til Tomorrow.