Wilshire shines again for the Gunners. Rafa suffers Spanish misery at the hands of Espanyol. Villa lift the Peace Cup after a spot-kick victory and a youthful Spurs slip to defeat. Here’s a round-up of Sunday’s action to bring us bang up-to-date…
Jack Wilshire succeeded in giving both Arsene Wenger and us fantasy managers plenty of food for thought with a two goal salvo that saw off Rangers on Sunday. After putting in a dazzling display against Athletico on Saturday, the 17-year-old followed this up with match-winning performance against the Scots.
Wilshire, playing on the right flank of a front three, got things started after just two minutes firing home from an Arshavin assist. Eduardo then doubled the Gunners lead nine minutes later, Merida feeding the ball on for the Croatian to stroke home. Wilshire then capped his performance with a volley from a Ramsey centre with two minutes remaining.
Wenger made a string of changes for this as expected but kept faith with the 4-3-3 formation once again. Gallas was partnered by Silvestre in the centre of defence, with Eboue and Clichy at full-back. Fabregas was joined by Song and fellow Spaniard Merida in midfield, whilst up front, Eduardo took the central attacking role with Arshavin and Wilshire either side.
All eyes will now be on Wilshire now of course, who in fantasy terms, potentially represents a huge bargain midfield option, should he force his way into Wenger’s first team plans. His performances in the last two friendlies have done just that but it’s still unclear just how Wenger will choose to utilise Wilshire’s undoubted talents. Wenger himself, admitted he faces a dilemma…
“I don’t know how much he will play. I speeded him up, I put him at 16 years of age in the dressing room and gave him a chance to practice everyday with the first-team players. If I had taken him out of the youth team now you would not have seen what you have seen today. That means he has benefited a lot from special treatment and an acceleration of his education because he plays for one year with the first team. But how many games? I don’t know. The only problem in England is knowing the impatience of the people is that it will be difficult to keep the right pace in his progress….Could he play the whole Premier League campaign? Certainly not. He is physically strong because he has a strong body, Jack. It’s difficult to predict.”
In all honesty a midfield role alongside Fabregas looks doubtful, Denilson is surely the favourite to claim this spot, with Song acting as the protector, barring the return of Vierra. The front three meanwhile is likely to consist of Arshavin, Van Persie and Walcott as a first choice. That would leave Wilshire as an impact sub as one of the flanking positions,finding him on the bench alongside Bendtner and Eduardo. We’ll doubtless get more clues next weekend when Arsenal travel to face Valencia – the Gunners final friendly, before travelling to Everton for their first league encounter.
In contrast to Arsenal’s stroll against Rangers, Rafa’s Liverpool suffered an alarming 3-0 defeat to Espanyol. Although Liverpool can look to a couple of Gerrard efforts that struck the woodwork and a cynical foul on Torres which may have resulted in a red card in a competitive match, there will be alarm bells ringing given that Rafa fielded an almost full strength eleven.
Aside from the inclusion of San Jose Dominguez for the injured Agger and Lucas in for the unsettled and surely Madrid-bound Alonso, the team sheet for this one could be very similar to the one that is issued against Spurs in a fortnight. Significantly, Insua started at left-back with Agger out of the picture, while Benayoun kept his starting role in midfield, leaving Babel and Reira on the bench once again. Rafa will certainly be looking for an improvement against FC Lynn on Wednesday and the weekend clash with Athletico Madrid.
The blue half of Merseyside enjoyed a slightly better Sunday afternoon, earning a 2-2 draw at Championship Coventry. The goals came from Cahill and Baxter as Moyes again opted to field a strong pre-season lineup. It saw Jack Rodwell fill in at centre-back, with Jolean Lescott reportedly sidelined with a hip injury, amidst talk of a move to City. Lescott will also miss Tuesday’s friendly with Blackpool according to a report today.
Not too much to report from this, aside from the form of Jo and Cahill who both reportedly looked sharp throughout this game. Fellaini started here however, there are reports doubting his early season availability due to a virus. More on that in a later post.
After starting the Peace Cup with a defeat to Malaga, Aston Villa went on to take the trophy on Sunday with a penalty shoot-out victory over Juventus. The game had ended 0-0 after 120 minutes with O’Neill again handing starts to Guzan, Lichaj and Albrighton in his lineup. Weimann also started up in support of Carew in attack, while Reo-Coker and Sidwell again occupied the central midfield roles. The latter has been one of the key successes of Villa’s pre-season and like N’Zogbia at Wigan and Richardson at Sunderland, has emerged as a real option in that mid-price midfield bracket. Sidwell will get further chances to make an impression when Villa take on Oxford United on Tuesday and Fiorentina next weekend.
Finally, Spurs slipped to a surprising 2-0 defeat to South China in the final game of their tour of Asia. However, with a packed pre-season programme in the last week, Redknapp threw in some youngsters for this one, with starts for Jonathan Obika, John Bostock, Danny Rose and Jake Livermore. It was an experimental lineup then so the main talking point will be the role of Robbie Keane. He unexpectedly turned out in a midfield position as a second-half replacmement for Jenas. With Crouch, Defore and Pavlyuchenko as options up front, club captain Keane’s role is in question. It appears that Redknapp is already thinking about deploying him in either a wide or central midfield role.
“Robbie came on and he played in there. He is a good player and he can play several positions. He is always enthusiastic and he loves to play wherever he is asked to play.”