Emirates Cup - Adebayor questions for Wenger
Us Gooners have fond memories of the last times we've faced Juventus and Real Madrid.
Who can forget that Robert Pires tackle on his old mate Patrick Vieira, Cesc's goal past the mighty Gianluigi Buffon or Titi wrapping it up with a second before the visitors received two late red cards.
There was a belief running through the Arsenal side that season, having already dispatched Real courtesy of that incredible solo goal from Henry and held out at Highbury amid a seige on our goal.
It will be a lot different this weekend, of course.
The main issue will be whether Manu Adebayor gives a better account of himself than against Stuttgart on Wdnesday, where his impact was negligible.
It was his first game of pre-season, so we shouldn't expect too much at this stage, but there will be 60,000 watchful eyes asking plenty of questions of our Togo striker.
How he will perform? Will he have started to understand what offside means?
Is his head still at Arsenal? Will the transfer speculation finally end or will he raise his game in the hope of getting that move and subsequent pay rise that so clearly seems to be his priority? The situation was not helped by Barca admitted they would be interested in signing him again today, should Samuel Eto'o move on.
From the Gooners' point of view, it will be interesting to see if the chants in his honour ring out as they did last season.
I'd like to see him come out tomorrow or Sunday and pledge his allegiance to the Gunners so we can all move on and start preparing for a title assault...or am I dreaming?
Samir Nasri talked today of Arsenal being a family and clearly he's settling in well. I was impressed by his ability to hold off clumsy defenders and if he comes close to emulating the last forward we signed from Marseille, then he will have proved to be a bargain.
Other than that, expect more glimpses of brilliance from Jack Wilshere, some great vision from Aaron Ramsey and further evidence that the PFA Young Player of the Year award might as well go to Carlos Vela right now.
Now led by ex Chavski boss Claudio Ranieri, Juventus, the 'Old Lady' of Turin, recently added former Aston Villa defender Olof Mellberg to their ranks but with ageing Alex Del Piero and David Trezeguet still part of their forward line, even our creaky defence shouldn't have any problems.
Whether Ruud 'why the long face?' Van Nistelrooy starts for Madrid remains to be seen, and I doubt Robinho will feature given Chavski's announcement that they are still after him.
That said, they still have a number of quality players, including Euro2008 victors Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos; Raul, Guti, Metzelder, Heinze, Cannavaro....need I go on?
If Van Nistelrooy doesn't feature, the it will be interesting to see what reaction that serial diver Arjen Robben gets, or whether Julio Baptista shows us the sort of skill that was all too rare when he spent a year with us.
I fully expect us to come away with two wins - and more mouth-watering football. Let's hope there are no injuries and more signals to the rest of Europe that this season, there will be no slip-ups.
David Alexander
Reader Comments (4)
I think Baptista has signed for Roma. Madrid will hold all the big players for the game against us. it will be a really good game and I am really looking forward to it. what a superb weekend ahead!!!
for sure the game would be fasinating. real n juve wont come here just to play defensive. they too want to show arsenal what they can do. i'm sure both team rate arsenal highly and win againts arsenal would certainly boost their moral. its a shame arsenal wont play hamburg. makes me wonder why the format only allow to play 2 teams not all.
Sell the lazy idiot Adebayor for 20 million plus ETO
Now that Adebayor's said he's committed to Arsenal and that he's staying, we should support him (or at least not boo him) and Arsene himself said that Adebayor always told him he was committed.
If Arsene and the player themselves have said that Adebayor's staying and is fully committed, why doubt them?
I think that people are calling this Adebayor thing a saga but most of the reports on his wage demands were just speculation, it was really only the one day where he said he was staying and a couple of hours later said he was looking at his options. That and his retirement pension were the only two quotes from him, unlike the Hleb saga where Hleb & his agent kept feeding the media bullshit.