Thursday 15 May 2014

FA Cup Final Preview

Here we are, the biggest game of our season and it just happens to be the last one. There will be plenty of time to dissect the league and CL season in due course but or now our focus should be totally and utterly on the FA Cup Final on Saturday.

This game is monumental on scale. I am not remotely exaggerating when I say this is far more than the make or break of this season. This is the make or break of this squad. If we lose on Saturday it will cripple the team mentally. If we lose I can't see us winning anything for the next 5 years at least. The team need to learn how to win, they need to know that feeling and have that desire to be there again without bottling it. That's part of the reason Liverpool fell at the last hurdle in the league. None of them were winners, they bottled it and so did the manager. Let's hope that come the end of the match on Saturday our team will know what it's like to win.

Team news is pretty limited at the moment being a Thursday but the early news suggests that Vermaelen and the Ox are doubts for the weekend and will face late fitness tests. Elsewhere the rest of the team are fit bar Walcott of course. Even Diaby is fit. This means that Wenger can pick his most experienced team and the team that he thinks is best. We have no excuses with injuries anymore, we have to go out and do what we've been doing most of the season.

It's so important in games like this to play the opposition not the occasion. If the occasion gets the better of a team then it only usually ends badly. I think the game will start fairly cagey with neither team wanting to end up trailing early on. Once the nerves settle, we need to get into our rhythm and get our game going. As I've said many times this season, if we play our game we'll have too much for them, but with Arsenal things are never that cut and dried. We like to make life difficult for ourselves.

Well my next post will either be one of joy or one of despair. Let's hope its the former. Till then COYG!