Richard: Arsenal to Face Tough Dortmund Task
Any trip to the Westfalenstadion is daunting. Even if Borussia Dortmund are not playing well, the fans inside the 80,000 capacity stadium echo a hellish noise from the Südtribüne. Arsenal are not only taking on this tonight, they are also taking on the German Champions.
The task is immense and recent form shows that the Gunners do not even look up to the challenge. A poor performance against a weak Sawnsea team this weekend earned them a 1-0 win. In truth this has been the highlight of a season fraught with disappointment. Key player departures and defeat to title challengers are all things that Arsenal fans have had to endure in these early stages. When the North London team walk out into the “Yellow Wall” of the Südtribüne (Europe’s largest terrace holding 24,000) they will have to believe that their season starts here.
Arsenal can take some heart in the fact that the German Champions have also been having a fairly tough time of things this year. They have played five matches so far in this years Bundesliga and despite getting off to a winning start against Hamburg they fell to defeat at Hoffenheim in their first away game. It looked as though this was only a blip as Dortmund bounced back with a home win against Nurnburg but a draw against Bayer Leverkusen was incredibly followed by this weekends 2-1 home defeat to newly promoted Hertha Berlin. This has left the German side 12th in the table with six scored and four conceded. The main players so far in Borussia’s season have been midfielder Kevin Großkreutz who has scored three times so far, forward Robert Lewandowski who has two goals and one assist and the man that Arsenal themselves would like at the Emirates Mario Götze who has scored once and managed three assists.
Arsenal who have yet to show what they can do this term will need to be firing on all cylinders to get three points from this very tricky away day. Another issue that may hamper Arsenal’s preparation is the fact that Arsene Wenger is not even allowed in the dressing room or onto the touchline due to a UEFA ban. When quizzed if he would use untoward tactics to communicate as Mourinho did by reported use of a laundry basket Wenger laughed this off saying. “I am too tall for that and the laundry baskets are too small in Germany. I will send my vibes and hope they will not be detected by UEFA. We will go through all the situations before the game. Pat will make the right decisions. For once, I will have somebody else to blame.”
The Dortmund manager Jürgen Klopp however, does not see Wengers absence as a problem stating that “I would rather see Walcott, Gervinho or Van Persie in the stands,”
Arsenal must go into tonight’s game and respect the dangers posed by this awakened giant of European Football. They must not however, be over awed by the occasion and it is paramount that they play with confidence. This Arsenal squad have a lot to prove and tonight is the perfect setting to do so.
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Arsenal without Wilshere is as Dortmund without Götze. But Götze will play, Wilshere not. Will be very hard. Hope for 1 Point.
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I’m most worried about Gibbs vs Goetze. His defensive attributes are most lacking and if he does his wondering up the pitch we are going to see yellows and reds from our holding mids and half backs trying to cover.
Other than that battle, I think Wenger has a great headache of so many in form classy players to choose from.
I’d like to see Park come on sometime tonight and give Mr fragile a rest before he takes his 3 month sebatical early.
Walcott is crap at finishing but with enough shots he’ll be a machine gun, sooner or later it’ll hit the target. He also joined up nicely with Gervinho the last time they both played.
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theo walcott will win this match 4 the gunnerz. at least i hope…………GO GOONERZ
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All i knw 4 sure z dat we gona win ok
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Attack…Attack…Attack! The best tactic against German teams is to attack – go for the kill RVP!
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bench walcot. bring on park ashavin and rvp. we need more of intelligence than speed to summount any german mountain. santos should as well bring some experience frm left back.
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we will beat Dortmund… stop comparing our game against Swansea, we had 3 new player debuts plus no Song and Gervinho… Arsenal is a different team in Champions league, especially when we have Song and Gervinho in there.. Dortmund hasn’t had a good start to the Bundesliga either and the pressure is on them especially after their defeat at home against Hertha Berlin… come on Goonerz!!! WE CAN ONLY GET BETTER!!
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Everyone … Put your rose tinted spectacles DOWN !!
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