Proper Football Beckons at the Madejski

I hate games on Mondays. The fervour of the weekend’s fixtures is gone and everyone is back to work or school, so it feels wierdly disorientating to slip back into Arsenal mode.

I’m glad its Reading tonight though, not because of last season, which saw the boys enjoy possibly the finest ever articulation of Wenger’s football philosophy in an awesome display, but because, put simply, Reading play football. It was that fact which should have earned Coppell the manager of the season accolade, yes his team were favourites for the drop, yes they spent very little and yes they finished a surprisingly high eighth, but most importantly they played with freedom, dynamism and flair. When most newly promoted mangers would have planned to finish 17th by playing flat back 9 football home and away, Coppell had the strategic vision to offer an other way. Although they were occasionally battered, more often than not their commitment to expansive and free flowing football overcame the many doubters, and saw them finish comfortably in the top half. Which is why tonight’s game promises much, two teams who play attractive football, how many premiership clubs can truly claim to do that?

I sincerely hope Arsene goes with 4-4-2, its time Eduardo had another chance to start, I am not an advocate of 4-5-1, why does Wenger feel the need to change a winning formula? Yes the opposition has been of a high calibre recently but I sincerely believe that we would have won our last three games had we started them with two strikers. With Kolo and Rosicky returning it’s natural to assume that we’ll have our first choice 11 (minus RVP of course). However, don’t be alarmed if Wenger rotates again, while Fabregas and Hleb will surely come back, I quite fancy Diarra, and even Traore to win their first premiership starts of the season.

One more thing, those of you who read The Observer yesterday may have noticed a rather fascinating dribble league. Hleb and Clichy were both in the top 5, with young Gael second with 67.5% dribble success rate (on a 20 dribbles or more condition), that’s what we expect from the best left-back in the world. The top dribbler in the Premiership was slightly more surprising: Abou Diaby, with a whopping 90.5%. We all know Wenger loves his stats, wonder what he makes of that one?