Highbury House

Morning Gooners….

Well well, just after the Dutchman nearly choked trying to talk about his old club yesterday, news broke in Twitterland and on a couple of Arsenal websites that Alex Song has done a ‘Nellie the Elephant’.

By that I mean he’s packed his bag and said goodbye to his team mates but he’s heading to the circus, not leaving one. Well, the Barcelona players do behave like a circus act sometimes don’t they…

That would have been funnier had he played for the Ivory Coast rather than Cameroon….

Anyway, suggestion is he has gone and we’ll hear confirmation of that sometime this weekend or Monday. Arsene Wenger did very little to diffuse the rumours surrounding our midfield rock early yesterday morning when during his press conference he said that Song could leave.

I wish him the best and all that but Arsenal come first and our midfield needs and deserves someone more disciplined in it.

Wenger also suggested yesterday that Song is injured and won’t be featuring today having suffered a ‘little knock’ but later you will see he is not on the injured list form the official site.

Wenger also confirmed yesterday that he is interested in beating Liverpool to the signing of Nuri Sahin:

He is one of the players we follow

That’s about as much as our manager gives away so keep your fingers and toes crossed on this one…

Conflicting stories in the news this morning about Theo Walcott, one journalists writes that is he next out the door where as The Daily Mirror report that talks are going well and Arsene Wenger is set to offer him a little pay rise and expects him to sign his new contract very soon. I hope it’s the latter..

So here it is, the new 2012/13 season has arrived and Sunderland are our first opponents.

Team news:

Players missing for us today are:

Koscielny (calf), Oxlade-Chamberlain (ankle), Wilshere (ankle), Rosicky (tendon), Sagna (leg), Frimpong (knee)

Sunderland have Vaughan, Bardsley and Brown out.

Match Stats:

We are unbeaten in our last 11 opening-day fixtures and this is the first time since 2008 that our new campaign has kicked off at home and our record against Sunderland is good, having lost just one of our last 17 league games against them.

Last season was a funny old one really, we recouped many of our points from losing position, in fact more than any other team in the Premier League and we didn’t win a single penalty at the Emirates.

We scored the more goals (12) than any other side in the opening 15 minutes of a game, that’s more than any other team in the 2011/12 Premier League season.

Sunderland finished their season with a poor away record, failing to register a win in their last seven fixtures on the road and nearly a third of their goals conceded were from headers, the highest in the league – so a good game for Giroud to feature in?

Our home record at the end of the last campaign went a bit wayward, we drew two and lost one of them and against sides we really should have beaten.

Form/statistics go out the window though, this is a new beginning!

It’s time to make The Emirates our fortress, it’s time that our costly stadium became a place where other clubs fear to enter just as they did Highbury, not somewhere where other sides turn up knowing they have a good chance of sneaking a victory.

We finally have a leader who has a bit about him, one who will hopefully instil a bit of attitude into the players, a bit of passion and a whole lot of desire.

A leader who could bring back that fear factor to the tunnel, none of this standing around admiring who you are up against, get some hatred running through the veins and take a never say die attitude out onto the pitch.

Thomas Vermaelen said:

It makes me really happy and proud to be Arsenal captain – it’s a real honour.

Good, now go and make your club and it’s fans proud, lead by example and make sure that every other player follows you….

Have a good day all…….